The Mirror World Podcast

On this episode, we talk with our guest Mario Facchinetti from Swiss Proptech about the state of the industry and his experience with technology and innovation in real estate. On this episode are joining Nilson Kufus (CEO) and Max Gick (Business Dev) to discuss about this booming innovation space.

On this episode of the Mirror World Podcast we sit together with Janet T. Phan to talk about her journey, her passion for mentoring and the support of women in STEM in Switzerland and abroad and her incredible charity project - Thriving Elements.

In this episode, we sit together with Deniz Karahan, the founder of Proptech Switzerland and talk about the origins of this fast growing community, their initiatives and what truly makes proptech, proptech.

In this episode, we're coming back for the first time since lockdown and we cover it all - from dealing with a completely new set up, working remotely and the refocus towards the building of a spatial application for real estate. In this episode, Nilson Kufus (CEO) is in conversation with Bara Caldova (Head of Marketing).

In this episode of the Mirror World podcast we talk about the work life balance of an entrepreneur together with Vincent Pedrini the CFO and co-founder of Nomoko.   

In this episode of the Mirror World podcast we talk about the Swiss startup ecosystem together with our guest David Butler, Director of the Swiss chapter of Startup Grind and Nilson Kufus, CEO and co-founder of Nomoko. ·      1:00 – David introduction, how he entered the startup scene  ·      3:01 – The Swiss startups current state and observations·      4:05 – Consumer focused startups  ·      5:00 – Getting Switzerland on the global startup map ·      7:30 – The potential of the Zurich hub ·      8:35 – Funding rounds, are the big rounds accessible?  ·      10:20 – The Get Your Guide and On running stories·      12:00 – The risk averseness of startups  ·      15:00 – Projecting high versus being more cautious. Celebrating startup successes ·      16:25 – Tesla stock soaring on the stock market. The success of Tesla. ·      19:20 – China’s fast pace  ·      20:25 – The recent changes in the ecosystem. The story telling aspect is shifting in Switzerland ·      22:10 – European success stories ·      25:25 – Communicating difficulties and failure  ·      28:35 – Failure stories and learning from them   ·      35:40 – Considering entrepreneurship as a lifestyle versus entrepreneurship as a goal ·      41:06 – Struggle perceived as something negative  ·      44:45 – Products coming out of Switzerland  ·      48:20 – The strength in collaboration   

In this episode of the Mirror World podcast we talk about Smart cities together with our guest Sabrina Coccia who came to see us as part of the Horizon 2020 program and Lisa Li from the Nomoko team.·      1:03 – Sabrina's introduction and background, how she got involved with Smart Cities  ·      3:10 – The most attractive Smart City approaches  ·      4:25 – The complexity of Smart Cities·      5:12 – The origins of the Smart City concept  ·      7:30 – The evolution of Smart Cities events, what is showcased today ·      10:17 – How can technology serve as a tool to improve our lives ·      11:40 – Startups in the Smart City space   ·      12:25 – Privacy in Smart Cities ·      12:55 – How privacy is perceived in China  ·      15:00 – Initiatives in Canada  ·      16:35 – How does an ideal Smart City look like

In this episode of the Mirror World podcast we talk about the Augmented reality industry together with our guest Sebastian Tobler from Ateo and Maciej who is part of team Nomoko. ·      0:25 – Introduction of Sebastian and his company Ateo   ·      3:45 – How Pokémon Go impacted people ·      4:30 – Moving towards B2B ·      5:10 – Are we actually using AR applications in our daily lives?·      7:40 – AR in print  ·      9:10 – What would it take for AR to be adopted by the masses?·      11:55 – Minecraft multiplayer AR, how it works ·      13:10 – Ad blocking capabilities of AR technology: the real-life ad blocker app·      16:00 – Today’s challenges with hardware ·      17:40 – The social impact of AR ·      20:13 – The introduction of smartphones ·      21:30 – The Pokémon fan base ·      23:46 – The Harry Potter AR game

In this episode of the Mirror World podcast we talk about the 4th industrial revolution and how it will impact the world.  ·      0:35 – The first time we heard about the 4th industrial revolution  ·      2:35 – The first wave of web-based internet, how people reacted to it·      4:30 – The impact of the 3rd industrial revolution of the internet   ·      8:30 – The difference between the third and the fourth industrial revolutions ·      9:30 – The gap between each revolution ·      12:30 – The 4th industrial revolution is becoming a topic  ·      13:52 – When Bill Gates was on Letterman talking about the early stages of the email era. What did we learn from this interaction ·      17:41 – The impact of the internet  ·      18:50 – We have an opportunity today to shape our future  

In this episode of the Mirror World podcast we talk about diversity and culture in companies together with our guest Priska Burkard from Techface. ·      0:54 – Priska’s background, career changes and opportunities that led her to start her own business  ·      5:00 – Talents in Switzerland   ·      6:17 – The main challenges today for candidates, companies and society   ·      8:27 – Positive trends of the past few years, companies are changing. Diversity brings an added value   ·      10:10 – Tech communities helping each other·      12:00 – Company values, setting an example  ·      13:30 – What candidates look for in a job. The importance of culture and purpose  ·      14:25 – Company culture is built by people ·      15:08 – Money is not the main factor for candidates. How does this affect companies trying to attract talents·      18:30 – What companies are doing for diversity. Candidates are more demanding·      22:40 – Small companies vs. larger companies, how do they tackle diversity and culture  ·      28:22 – What is recommended for a better outcome ·      33:22 – The next decade will be about humans, we need people to understand how to best use technology in our daily lives

In this episode of the Mirror World podcast we talk about the origins of the Mirror World concept, where did it come from and when did we as a company start using this term. ·      1:00 – The Mirror World concept depicted in the Wired article written by Kevin Kelly ·      2:42– The Digital Twin definition and what it represents  ·      3:53 – The infrastructure to enable AR (Augmented Reality) ·      5:50 – The Mirror World mentioned in 1993 by a Yale professor called David Galertner·      7:35 – Projecting the real physical world into a digital space·      9:40 – The impact of 5G on a city·      11:00 – We are at the very early stages of the Mirror World era ·      15:10 – Computer power and algorithms today   ·      17:40 – The evolution of the internet  ·      19:10 – Data privacy and rights  ·      21:00 – The Mirror World is an infrastructure not a product ·      23:50 – A machine readable Mirror World  ·      27:20 – Standing the test of time and the impact on businesses 

In this episode of the Mirror World podcast we talk about the Mirror World in more details and why we need to set different types of data standards, how we structure spatial data in order to enable all the use cases which are coming our way with the 4th industrial revolution.·      0:40 – What is the Mirror World and how can it be built effectively? What standards need to be set? ·      1:40 – Spatial mapping: the base of the Mirror World. The different standards and software. How do we represent data? ·      7:55 – In what way should spatial data be represented?·      9:00 – The common use of data. Is there a single way to represent data in the Mirror World?   ·      10:00 – How do we bring all the data together as a society?  ·      11:10 – What is the common space?  ·      12:39 – A machine readable Mirror World  ·      13:06 – Thinking about the Mirror World as a system.·      14:50 – A Mirror World is human and machine readable. What are the implications of that? Making the real-world machine readable. ·      16:00 – The existing digital representations of our world: Why are these different and not considered the Mirror World?  ·      19:40 – Living life in the Mirror World  ·      23:00 – The universality of the Mirror World, privacy respecting and cryptographic based identification. ·      24:20 – How do we insure we can comply with legal requirements? ·      28:40 – We are at the beginning of the 4th industrial revolution  

In this episode of the Mirror World podcast we host Lazar Tosic from Somniacs with whom we attended the CEATEC 2019 event in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago. We talk about our key takeaways from the event and of course the Somniacs Birdly experience.·      0:40 – Somniacs introduction  ·      1:25 – What is Birdly and how does it work·      3:55 – People’s reactions to the Birdly experience ·      5:45 – Birdly’s origin story, from the initial idea, the prototype all the way to the commercialization ·      8:15 – How Nomoko and Birdly connected  ·      10:35 – CEATEC, Tokyo: impressions and feedback  ·      13:04 – Society 5.0·      16:30 – Birdly use cases which contribute to society    ·      19:30 – Birdly’s future developments, what’s next·      22:45 – The importance of content  ·      24:25 – How Birdly and Nomoko complete each other·      27:44 – Where are the Birdly machines located in the world·      29:25 – Airport displays ·      30:05 – Birdly gamification  ·      31:50 – Smart Cities Barcelona event in November 2019 

In this episode we discuss the post password era and talk about the current trends in online identity management and passwords. We talk about how the processes can be improved in terms of security and privacy and how they can be scaled when it comes to the mirror world we are building.  ·      0:33 – Your cryptographic ID on the blockchain ·      2:20 – Private/public keys and digital signatures ·      3:20 – Passwords and accounts security ·      7:50 – Signing in with Facebook and Google, and two factor authentication ·      10:40 – Getting rid of usernames and passwords ·      11:50 – Expiring passwords·      13:30 – Privacy does not equal secrecy ·      14:30 – Getting rid of passwords and the future of vehicle ID’s·      20:00 – Spatial IDs in the Mirror World ·      22:15 – Cryptographic IDs eliminating all passwords ·      27:02 – Making it possible for machines to interact with each other·      28:50 – Autonomous driving vehicles using the blockchain identity system  

In this episode we have the pleasure of announcing that we have been awarded the Horizon 2020 European commission grant. We talk about the application process and what winning this grant means for a startup.      ·      1:10 – What is Horizon 2020 and how much they have granted us·      2:00 – Which countries are part of this program ·      3:20 – What are the steps to follow during the application process, how to apply and what are the requirements based on your business·      6:40 – What is the objective of Horizon 2020·      7:40 – How much funding has gone to Switzerland and who represents this program in Switzerland    ·      8:50 – What are H2020’s other objectives and what are they trying to achieve  ·      10:00 – How does H2020 concretely help us besides the funding aspect·      11:22 -Who decides how to redistribute the grant they provided us·      13:38 – Is there any flexibility in case our business plan evolves, and things change·      16:14 – Our experience in this whole process and the benefits ·      18:14 – do we recommend participating in Horizon 2020?

In this episode we talk about AR and AR applications, trends, challenges and how we would love to see this industry evolve in the future.  ·      0:35 - Lisa intro, game design AR apps, AR experiences, mixed reality  ·      1:08 - Maciej intro, AR kit, indoor experiences, outdoor experiences ·      2:05 - Their favorite AR app·      2:33 - Unfinished apps with poor tracking ·      3:30 - Snapchat and Instagram filters  ·      4:26 - The challenges of bringing AR to outdoors. AR and VR are very different             technologies ·      5:50 - Indoor tracking vs. outdoor tracking, distracting factors·      6:55 - Phone limitation, light and objects are key factors·      7:38 - Computing power challenges·      8:30 - The camera tracking destabilises AR experiences ·      8:39 - Spatial anchors ·      10:09 - R&D and prototyping·      10:47 - Partnerships to connect all the pieces of the puzzle, to solve the problems the industry is facing·      11:49 - AR business cards, portable, digitised ·      12:21 - The creative process of creating AR experiences ·      13:55 - Solving technical challenges that would enable progress·      15:19 - The future of AR·      16:10 - The negative aspects and challenges of AR ·      19:20 - Seamless technology  

In this episode we talk about the current drone solutions and how the market is evolving. ·      1:00 - Getting into drones systems·      2:15 - The drones ecosystem in Switzerland·      8:00 - Permits required to fly, what are the rules and regulations·      11:15 - General public perception of drones·      14:00 - Privacy and safety ·      16:12 - The future of drones and what other areal systems will be used in the future·      20:55 - the current systems being used ·      28:00 - The next big applications 

Nilson and Vincent share their experience of building Nomoko for the past four years and the challenges they faced along the way. They also tell us what motivates them everyday to pursue their mission, Nomoko’s mission. 2:20 - The impact of what we learned in the past 4 years and how it will help for the future of Nomoko 3:00 - The vision hasn’t changed along the way  4:25 - The way we were perceived in the beginning  5:45 - How we had to learn when to be patient and when to accelerate  6:10 - The early stages of selling an idea and how this evolved as Nomoko grew  7:40 - The different ways the Nomoko vision can be explained depending on who talks about it  10:45 - Joining the company in the early stages and understanding the mission and the means to reach it  14:20 - Starting from scratch  15:00 - Taking the risk to kick off with a big team composed of diverse profiles  20:00 - Maintaining our vision no matter what 22:00 - Adjusting the strategy based on tangible information and taking decisions fast 23:15 - Being a father and running a company. When is a good time to start a family when running a company? 24:30 - Receiving positive feedback and employee motivation  25:00 - How to handle people’s feedback whether negative or positive  27:00 - Clicking with investors and their understanding of the business

In this episode we discuss the concept of visual positioning systems and their impact on people and industries. 0:23 - The importance of visual positioning systems using your phone2:55 -  Is visual positioning a product or a feature?5:55 -  What is running on the cloud vs. on the device?9:00 - We are moving towards a locally connected and converged world11:08 -  Location data and privacy issues 13:05 -  Adding data to the mirror world and building applications/functions15:50 - Our features will be someone else’s product17:30 - How visual positioning systems work in different regions 21:00 -  Bringing mirror world application to people according to user needs    

In this episode our guest Arijana Walcott and Bara talk about the US innovation culture and how it compares to the Switzerland startup ecosystem. They also touch topics such as risk taking, the fear of failure and why it is important to face global competition. 1:30 Arijana introduces her company Dart Labs https://dartlabs.io/2:20 The Silicon Valley and risk taking 4:10 How do we define startups today?6:05 Culture and vision in the US compared to Switzerland 11:04 Pitching a vision in the US and in Switzerland, how do people react?14:50 Arijana tells us about the time she quit her job, how it was perceived and the difference between corporate and startups17:14 The perception of failure in the US and in Switzerland 21:40 The fear of failure and the emergence of entrepreneurship during hard times24:15 Successful founders starting from the bottom with little resources 26:45 Giving up some shares to grow faster, delegating tasks to the right people 29:10 Competition is part of the journey