The Silicon Valley Insider Show with Keith Koo

Icecap – Tokenization of Investment Grade Diamonds

On this week’s Silicon Valley Insider (#SVIN), Keith Koo’s guest is Jacques Voorhees, CEO of Icecap Diamonds a company that is creating a two-way marketplace for investment-grade diamonds using Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).
Jacques is very well known in the diamond industry, but not so well known in the blockchain/cryptocurrency world (however you need to listen to the end of the show to hear how Jacques got into blockchain via a well-respected member of the cryptocurrency ecosystem). Jacques discusses how he originally envisioned a two-way marketplace for investment-grade diamonds over 40 years ago but did not have the tools necessary to create a platform that instilled confidence by the investor community. Jacques explains how a trading platform based on NFTs became the answer to his 40-year quest to create this trading platform.
During the show, Jacques provides his professional insight on the difference between consumer-grade and investment grade diamonds and why there are over 100 different attributes beyond the 4 “Cs” of diamonds that investors look for.
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith explains your options when being asked for a facial recognition scan at the airport when departing the United States for USA citizens and non-citizens.
On the Pivot, Keith Koo and Jacques Voorhees discuss the future of using tokenization and NFTs. 
For more information on Icecap Diamonds, got to their website at icecap.diamonds 
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California’s Registered Apprenticeship Program a Model for the Future

Did you know that there are currently over 70,000 open and unfilled Cyber Security jobs in California? The market salaries for these jobs can range from $100,000 to $150,000. The volume of traditional four-year college graduates has not been able to fulfill the demand. This is also true for other technology related jobs.
On this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Host Keith Koo discusses his passion to empower people pursuing technology related jobs without traditional four-year college degrees. Keith Koo’s guests are Kelly Mackey, Regional Director of Strategic Partnerships for the State of California’s Division of Apprenticeship Standards and returning guest Dr. Keith Clement, professor of Criminology at Fresno State University and the primary author of the California Cybersecurity Workforce Development and Education Strategy (2020-2030): Framework and Recommendations for the California Cybersecurity Career Education Pipeline and Pathway Project (CCCEPPP). Keith Koo serves on the Interagency Advisory Committee for Apprenticeships (IACA) – Information Technology Subcommittee and is a contributor to Dr. Clement’s curriculum and in developing industry partnerships with Regional Director Mackey’s group.
In the beginning of the show, Regional Director Kelly Mackey discuss the history of California’s registered apprenticeship program and the state’s focus on engaging with industry partners in providing employers a pool of talent via an alternative workforce.
In the second segment, Kelly answers the question on whether small and medium businesses can take advantage of the registered apprentice program and how to go about doing that. Later in the segment, Keith and Kelly are joined by Dr. Keith Clement who gives an update on the Cybersecurity Framework and Recommendations and the “deep hole” in filling the 70,000 unfilled Cyber Security jobs by meeting the needs of employers.
In the third segment, Kelly gives a deep dive on the benefits to an employer to adopt a registered apprenticeship program and how to engage with California’s Division of Apprenticeships in order to implement the program within their organizations.
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith gives discusses how Google and Amazon have now overtaken Apple as a primary vector for phishing, vishing and malware attacks and why that is the case. Keith also gives a special segment on funding programs for small businesses and startups.
On the Pivot, Keith Koo, Kelly Mackey and Dr. Keith Clement discuss how California’s Registered Apprenticeship program is a model for the future of work. 
For more information on California Registered Apprenticeships, follow this link:
https://www.dir.ca.gov/das/DAS_IACAMeetings.html or email info@svin.biz 
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Would You Sell Your Data for Ice Cream?

Would you be willing to sell your data for ice cream? Sadly, many people do not realize they do this daily when given a free offer of a product in exchange for their personal information. In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s guest is technology industry veteran Kevin Coppins, CEO of Data Protection company, Spirion. www.spirion.com
In the beginning of the episode, Kevin talks about how his interest in the data protection industry started during his Novell days. Along the way, his career spanned senior roles in supply chain and the telecom industry. Kevin explains the differences between data protection, data security and data privacy and why it’s important to understand the nuances as business owners and corporate executives work to keep their companies safe and comply with new data privacy regulations such as GDPR (General Data Protection of the European Union) and CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) which is considered to be the two most stringent data regulations in the world. Keith discusses the potential fines and reputational risk for companies that do not comply with these regulations and have a data breach.
Later in the show, Keith and Kevin give several examples of recent data breaches at major companies and the negative fallout for those companies. Also, Kevin and Keith answer the question of whether you should sell your data for ice cream.
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith gives a detailed explanation of a “vishing” attack. Vishing is a combination of phishing and social engineering through a phone call.
On the Pivot, Kevin Coppins comes back to discuss the future of data protection, data privacy, and data security and what it means for companies.
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Raising Capital Beyond Silicon Valley

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s returning guest is Jonathan Nelson, Managing Director of the Hack Fund and founder of Hackers and Founders.
Jonathan updates Keith on how the Hack Fund is moving forward with putting their next fund, “Hack Fund Five” as an IPO on the London Stock Exchange.  (Tune in to hear how two years ago, Jonathan and Keith had been discussing how the Hack Fund was looking into blockchain into tokenizing their fund and why the Hack Fund is now going the IPO route).
Later in the show, Keith and Jonathan talk about the investment climate for startups in the new normal, and Jonathan gives insight into his passion to bring Silicon Valley like capital to parts of the world that have traditionally not had the same access. Jonathan later gives his top tips for a startup.
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith an “old school” type of phishing attack involving the SBA PPP loan process.
On the Pivot, Jonathan Nelson comes back to talk about his predictions for how investments, startups, and remote work will continue. Jonathan also gives details on which industries he is placing his investment bets on. Jonathan ends the show by discussing how diversity inside and outside of Silicon Valley is good for business and investors. You don’t want to miss what Jonathan has to say.
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Commercial Drones: Aeronyde Corporation

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo special guest is Alexander “Alex” Bilous, Chief Technology Officer of Aeronyde Corporation. Aeronyde is a next-generation drone-as-a-service and drone-as-a-managed service provider located in Melbourne, Florida (aka the “Space Coast”). www.aeronyde.com
Alex begins the show discussing how he followed his passion to pursue UAS/UAV and eVTOL (i.e. “drones”) after serving in the U.S. Navy as a field medic and attending university. From there, he has spent the better part of the last decade immersed in the drone industry from hardware, software, firmware, and systems management.
Keith and Alex discuss the importance of the LAANC (Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability)program, a public/private between the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and industry to ensure safe skies and operations for drones and how Aeronyde is an official partner and provider of services that adhere to LAANC protocols. Alex also discusses how the industry is coming together to solve for remote identification of drones and how to think of drones as “flying mobile phones”.
Later in the show, Keith and Alex talk about different use cases that are quickly adopting drone services such as transportation, critical infrastructure, and agriculture. Alex describes a few of Aeronyde’s customer engagements and outcomes that show the benefits of using drones to do certain jobs more efficiently and with less risk, such has phone towers, transmission lines, and wind turbine inspections.
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith discusses the NSA’s recent guidance to all service members to “turn-off” location tracking in their smart devices and what are the risks and benefits of using location services.
On the Pivot, Keith’s special guest is Alexander (Alex) Bilous, comes back to discuss the near-term future of commercial aviation with drones. He discusses air-taxis and air-ambulances. Keith and Alex also discuss an emergency monitoring system being used in Seoul, South Korea.
*disclosure – Keith Koo is a senior advisor and is the fractional Chief Operating Officer of Aeronyde More information on Aeronyde can be found here: www.aeronyde.com or email info@svin.biz to find out how you can engage with Aeronyde.
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Advanced Air Mobility – Securing the Supply Chain for UAV and eVTOL

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s returning guest is Dr. Parimal Kopardekar (PK), Director of NASA’s Aeronautics Research Institute (NARI) who discusses the importance of a safe and resilient supply chain for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM). AAM is dedicated to ensuring the safe operation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and eVTOL (electric Vertical Take-off and Landing).
 
PK discusses how his training as a production engineer gives him a unique perspective in thinking about a strategic supply chain. He describes in detail the tiers of supply chain within the aerospace industry and how the supply chain needs to think “end-to-end” from the raw materials to the assembly and to support and maintenance. Throughout the show, PK and Keith give best practices on supply chain management (PK as an expert on supply chains for advanced manufacturing and systems and Keith as the head of vendor management and third-party risk management for Fortune 100 companies).
 
Later in the show, PK dives into the challenges of ensuring a safe and resilient supply-chain and how he gives his perspective and insight into ways to advance the aeronautic ecosystem such as creating the NARI / US Airforce – Agility Prime working group (which Keith Koo is a member of). Information on how to participate in this industry working group can be found at the NASA website located here:
 
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith discusses the Garmin ransomware attack which is the latest “massive” hack which caused a lengthy (and ongoing) systemwide service outage. Garmin provides GPS tracking data not just for fitness trackers but also for aviation and marine applications causing issues for some pilots and boat captains that rely on these services. Keith gives a few tips on how to keep from getting hacked and even if you do get hacked, how you can ensure minimal disruption.
 
On the Pivot, Keith’s special guest is Alexander (Alex) Bilous, Chief Technology Officer of Aeronyde* Corporation a drone-as-a-service company. Alex follows-up on the earlier conversation with PK on how companies involved in aerospace, such as Aeronyde, will address the supply chain issues. Alex talks about the need for technology and regulations to advance and improve so that it can meet the demands of a secure supply chain as well as both he and Keith looking forward to the day that commercial drones can be manufactured in the USA in a cost-efficient manner. Alex discusses the work being done with Aeronyde as part of the Small UAV Coalition (an industry workgroup) to keep our skies safe and secure worldwide.
 
*disclosure – Keith Koo is a senior advisor and is the fractional Chief Operating Officer of Aeronyde More information on Aeronyde can be found here: www.aeronyde.com 
 
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Innovation in Insurance and Insurtech

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s special guest is Paul Chen, Partner at Mayer Brown in their Silicon Valley and San Francisco Corporate & Securities Practice. 
Paul is an internationally recognized legal expert in complex transactions in the insurance, financial services, and health care sectors, especially in deals involving technology and innovation. His experience spans cross-border mergers and acquisitions, strategic investments, and joint ventures. Paul advises early-stage companies and strategic corporates and is a frequent speaker on insurance innovation. He also advises clients on US securities law matters, including tender offers, going-private transactions, and capital raising activities. Paul has significant US and Asia transactional experience and regularly represents Asia-based and other international investors on acquisitions and investments in the US and other parts of the world.
 
Early in the show, Keith and Paul discuss how the “new normal” has caused the insurance industry to embrace digitization faster to serve the needs of their customers and their back offices. Paul has recently co-authored an article for Mayer Brown regarding the same topic which can be found here:
 
Paul and Keith go into detail with several examples of technology and innovation being adopted in the insurance industry including how the insurance industry is looking at drone technology to survey accident scenes and take witness statements. Paul explains the importance of how companies address data protection and privacy as they move quickly to adopt new processes and technologies.
 
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith drills down on the root cause of the massive Twitter attack which was a result of social engineering. Keith talks about what social engineering is and what steps companies can take to minimize their exposure.
 
On the Pivot, Paul Chen is back to discuss what the future of the insurance industry looks like powered by insurtech.
 
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CloudCoin - Monetary Systems as Information Systems

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s special guest is Sean Worthington. Sean is the president of the CloudCoin Consortium, CEO of the RAIDA Protocol, a professor and author of the books: “Perfect Money” and “Beyond Bitcoin”.
 
Keith and Sean enjoy a deep discussion around Sean’s hypothesis that monetary systems are really information systems and with that knowledge created both the patented RAIDA protocol and the CloudCoin alternative currency system. Sean refers to “perfect money” as a private currency that cannot be manipulated by anyone or anything including governments with socialist tendencies. Perfect money is also not hackable and is resistant to other forms of electronic theft. 
 
As a professor of computer science, Sean answers a question of what is quantum computing and the surprising research that it is farther along in development than what was predicted even two years ago. The implications of quantum computing advancing faster than expected are that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which is considered the gold standard) can theoretically be hacked in just a few more years.
 
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith discusses the massive Twitter hack which affected virtually every prominent celebrity and company using Twitter to steal cryptocurrency from unsuspecting Twitter users. Keith also brings up malware that is embedded in many free and low-cost android phones and what can be done about it.
 
On the Pivot, Keith is once again joined by Sean Worthington. Listen as they discuss the future of currency and monetary systems.
 
More information on CloudCoin can be found here: www.cloudcoin.global
 
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Senior Living Innovations in the New Normal

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s special guest is Rob Henderson, Senior Vice President of Operations at Westmont Living, company committed to being a model of innovation in senior living.
With all the news regarding how COVID19 has adversely affected the senior population, Keith felt it was important to address what senior living and senior communities are doing to safely and effectively serve their residents, employees, and their residents’ family members and loved ones. Keith shares his experience with caring for his parents who had been in senior care and how their senior caregivers must be working in “overdrive” to address the “New Normal”. Keith is joined by senior care industry expert Rob Henderson who has held every role in senior living to explain how the industry is responding to the reality of operating during a pandemic.
Rob gives great insight into the extraordinary measures that are being taken to ensure that senior living residents are given the safest environment possible with minimal disruption to what they have grown accustomed to. He shares what innovations are occurring in all facets of the industry from people, process, and technology including the use of video conferencing technologies. During the show, Rob talks about what leadership qualities to look for in an executive director of a senior living facility for those that are considering these communities as an option for themselves or their loved ones.
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith talks about biometric spoofing. Instead of discussing facial recognition, Keith discusses voice recognition and how a story that involved Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa and Burger King 3 years ago would be addressed today using new methods to combat a voice recognition “hack”.
On the Pivot, Keith is once again joined by Rob who discusses what the future of Senior Living looks like in the “New Normal”. 
To find out more about Westmont Living, senior living or senior care, email us at info@svin.biz and we will be sure to have a representative contact you.
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Collaborating the “New Normal” with Slack

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s special guest is Allan Leinwand, SVP of Engineering at Slack. Allan is an engineering legend inside, and outside Silicon Valley and he tells what it is like to be powering the “new normal” via Slack’s collaboration platform.
Allan is known for helping companies in “hyper-growth” mode and has literally “done it all” in the engineering community. He got an early start at Cisco Systems working on core routing protocols before creating a startup that got acquired by Brocade. He then went onto prominent roles in venture capital and then on to being CTO of infrastructure at Zynga and CTO of ServiceNow before joining Slack. 
Keith discusses with Allan on what is his approach to help the world’s leading SaaS companies to reach massive scale and what is his advice for other technology and engineering leaders who are trying to build out their companies’ operations. Allan also shares his wisdom on how to lead remote teams in the “new normal” and some of the best practices that he and the Slack team have implemented to collaborate with each other effectively. Allan discusses a new feature that has been developed by the Slack team that allows different organizations to work together..
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith does a deep dive into the security concerns around “TikTok the viral video content maker that has over one billion users worldwide. Users of TikTok discovered that it has been accessing their data and sending the information to foreign servers.
In “The Pivot”, Allan and Keith discuss the future of technology and work. How collaboration will be more and more reliant on technology and how Slack was pivotal in a service project to help licensed healthcare workers to collaborate in real-time as they battle COVID-19 using Slack as the platform.
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