Tech Nation – a key player in the UK tech startup scene for over a decade – has shuttered its doors. But Barclays Eagle Labs will continue where its predecessor left off, with millions of promised funding in addition to the government’s £12 million digital growth grant hoped to spur investment.While questions around visa commitments have yet to be answered, firms outside of southeast England could nevertheless be swayed by Barclays Eagle Labs’ nationwide reach and sector expertise.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Ross Kelly, ITPro’s startups & small business specialist and staff writer, to reveal the current state of UK startups and the mood following the cessation of Tech Nation’s activities.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has moved from being a sci-fi staple to a tool that’s in widespread use. Headlines today are dominated with news of generative AI services such as ChatGPT and Bard, the latest and greatest in large language models from firms OpenAI and Google. These promise users a crack at incredibly capable text generation and interpretation based on vast training models, using nothing more complicated than their browser and a keyboard.As powerful tools for text generation, large language models also carry the risk of empowering threat actors. As more people publicly access these systems than ever before, security firms are assessing how chatbots could bolster malicious activity.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Hanah Darley, head of threat research at cybersecurity firm Darktrace, on the potential misuse of generative AI models, and the role the technology can play as part of a wider AI defence arsenal at the enterprise level.

It’s been over a year since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and for those in the tech sector cyber warfare has defined the conflict. Ukrainian organisations, both public and private, have been subject to attacks including wiper malware, spear phishing, and data breaches.National cyber security agencies, as well as teams of security experts from throughout the field, remain on high alert for heightened Russian cyber activity. Understanding the strategies of these hackers, as well as their individual motivations, has been key to retaining the integrity of targeted systems.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Daniel Thanos, head of Arctic Wolf Labs, to discuss the current state-sponsored threat group landscape, and how the terms of the conflict have shifted over time.

Metaverse tech has already attracted billions of pounds in investment, and despite its detractors looks set to play a major role in the future of communications and productivity tech. It was also one of the main themes at this year’s Mobile World Congress, where the concept of a CMO - that’s ‘chief metaverse officer’ - was discussed in detail.Companies like Journey, Nike, and Telefónica already have individuals with metaverse in their titles, but there is still a lot to be proved about the longevity of these roles. With metaverse tech still lacking definition in the minds of businesses and consumers alike, the impact that this new concept of a CMO will have on the industry as a whole.In this special episode, IT Pro reviews editor Bobby Hellard presents a report from MWC, covering the definition and responsibilities of a chief metaverse officer, and whether or not the role could have a vital role to play in the C-suite of the future.

Open source software can be found in a huge number of businesses' stacks. Whether it’s to save on expensive software, to fix a problem that a devoted hobbyist has a solution for, or because of its lively developer community, open source solutions run throughout the tech sector.However, in recent years security concerns have damaged the perception of open source software and vulnerabilities like Log4Shell left some IT leaders with headaches they aren’t keen to repeat. As the market expands, some open source developers find themselves under more pressure than ever before and questions have been raised around the duty of larger firms to help support the community they rely on.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Keumars Afifi-Sabet, features editor at IT Pro and our specialist covering open source, to discuss the challenges facing the open source community and ask whether it will survive in its current form.

The conversation around UK connectivity is often dominated by the rollout of 5G, or the race for widespread gigabit broadband. But many rural communities and businesses struggle with a lack of even basic connectivity such as reliable cellular service. This has severe consequences for rural businesses, holding back their growth while accelerating brain drain as younger people gravitate towards urban areas for education and employment.Some groups have taken measures into their own hands to ensure they receive the connectivity they need. In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Dave Happy, collaboration lead at 5GRuralDorset, to discuss the connection difficulties facing rural businesses and what is being done to help.

Throughout the pandemic, companies across the world rushed to establish cloud services that could prop up the need for remote working. But in recent months, word of a “cloud slowdown” has been building, with some of the biggest vendors experiencing a drop in the growth of their cloud sales.In the third quarter of 2022, AWS reported the slowest growth in its history, while Google’s growth was down almost 10% on the previous year.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Ross Kelly, IT Pro’s cloud specialist and staff writer to discuss what’s behind the cloud slowdown – and whether it’s even happening.

Old technology stacks can be found throughout the sector, especially in companies that have been around for more than a few years. While most firms have undergone digital transformation of some kind, shedding legacy tech is no easy job and can lead people to take the path of least resistance, using a mix of old and new tech across their IT estate.This can lead to big issues down the line. A recent example is the outage that led to thousands of flights being cancelled and delayed across the United States, which the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) blamed on accidental file deletion while updating a database. The authority is heavily-reliant on old systems, and has said it will take until 2029 to phase them out.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Ravi Mayuram, SVP of engineering and CTO at cloud database platform Couchbase, to discuss the challenges presented by legacy infrastructure, and why enterprises need to take the opportunity to upgrade before problems become entrenched.

IT departments, which have long faced difficulties trying to recruit skilled talent, are now facing an additional challenge as many businesses put a freeze on hiring in the face of economic instability and look to use existing resources as efficiently as possible. With this goal in mind, it’s important to enable employees to be productive, while not leaving them overworked.Improperly organised work stacks, insufficient collaboration and a failure to adapt to changing work environments are all factors that can negatively impact productivity, and must be tackled from the planning stage to allow workplaces to thrive.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Christian Lund, co-founder at productivity tech firm Templafy, to unpack concerns around productivity in the current landscape and how automation and AI can help to solve these problems.

Application programming interfaces, or APIs, have become an integral part of maintaining an online business, and are often indispensable for cross-functionality and user experience.However, the increased use of APIs has led to a rise in attacks against them. This can in turn cause breaches of company data or even full account takeovers. Improperly-managed APIs are a key attack surface and firms would do well to treat this seriously as threat actors step up their efforts at exploitation.Today, we spoke to Yaniv Balmas, VP of security research at Salt Security, to discuss the risks that come with using APIs and how to mitigate against them.

As we enter what is set to be a long recession businesses are looking to manage and reduce costs, and IT departments will be forced to budget where possible. More than ever, IT leaders are evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of serverless architecture, the best payment models for their business, and the risks associated with vendor lock-in amidst uncertain financial conditions.This week, we spoke to Tom Fairbairn, distinguished engineer at event broker Solace, to explore when serverless and low-code solutions might be right for a business, and how the recession could be an opportunity for meaningful digital transformation.

Large companies are relying on online learning more and more, to improve the career goals of their employees, and upskilling can be an important way of retaining staff while adding to existing expertise.But the public sector has lagged behind the private sector on this front, and is currently experiencing record churn and vacancies. 410,000 staff quit social care in 2021, and care roles around the country are now short of approximately 165,000 staff.This week, we spoke to Hadi Moussa, general manager and managing director for EMEA at one of the largest online learning platforms, Coursera, to unpack how virtual upskilling courses can help improve staff retention in social care, as well as the prospects of roles within the sector.

Passwords can be tricky at the best of times. Proper password hygiene is one of the most important factors in endpoint security, as it keeps sensitive data secure and prevents threat actors from getting into important systems. Despite the risks, the use of weak or recycled passwords continues to be a problem even amongst IT professionals and remembering too many unique passwords is a strain. While systems such as multi-factor authentication have been used as an extra layer of security, groups like the FIDO Alliance and World Wide Web Consortium have been working to make passwords a thing of the past, in favour of more secure methods.This week, we spoke to Richard Meeus, EMEA director of security & technology strategy for Akamai Technologies, to explore the solutions driving secure sign ons, and how the sector can adapt to this change.

In today's festive edition of the podcast, Jane and Rory discuss a few key trends happening right now that could influence 2023. With Twitter undergoing constant change, and other firms such as Meta and TikTok facing regulatory battles, current conversations around the upheaval of social media could play a major role in the coming year. Together with the recession into which the UK has fallen, and the rise of generative AI like ChatGPT, these emerging trends from 2022 will continue to dominate headlines and drive discussion among IT professionals in the new year and beyond.

In today's festive edition of the podcast, Jane and Rory discuss three things that were predicted to happen during the course of 2022, but never did.The metaverse making sense, Russian threat actors winning against Ukraine and other nations, and the 'bonfire' of EU regulations were all promised or anticipated, but none came to pass. We ask what has happened instead, and question why things turned out the way they did.

In a sector of changing priorities, cyber security remains at the top of the list in any boardroom. With the threat landscape presenting challenges old and new, and the increasing risk of entities such as state-sponsored hacking, it is essential that businesses carefully craft their cyber security strategy to keep ahead of the next big attack.The speed that threats evolve now demands real-time action from companies, who must maintain oversight of their assets and maintain as many assets as possible against vulnerabilities such as Log4Shell.This week, we spoke to Bernard Montel, technical director EMEA at exposure management firm Tenable, to discuss how businesses can tackle their threat surface area, and the biggest risks.

Hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure has become such an important aspect of digital transformation, but it brings its own potential risks. It’s important that businesses maintain a macro view of their environment, with centralised dashboards proposed as an option to provide adequate observability to security teams.With the increasing pressures of data sovereignty, and concerns surrounding lateral security, it’s more important than ever that siloed teams are brought together under clear security strategies in order to keep infrastructure safe.This week, we spoke to Stanimir Markov, CEO and co-founder of risk remediation and mitigation provider Runecast, about the state of cloud security, some of the biggest challenges right now, and what’s next for the sector.

5G holds major potential for businesses, from improved speeds and the technology it enables such as the Internet of Things. But to unlock its true potential, and lay the groundwork for 6G, a number of new technologies have to be tapped. To grasp opportunities like open RAN, network slicing, and private network environments, radical overhaul is necessary, to drive both innovation and revenue growth. Networking has never been more important across every aspect of life, and telcos hold a unique opportunity to win tomorrow with the right infrastructure investments today.This week, we spoke to Manish Vyas, President, Communications, Media & Entertainment and CEO, Network Services at Tech Mahindra, to outline the future of the telecommunications industry, 5G/6G, and the opportunities provided by leading edge methodology.

Ten years ago, identity fraud typically meant people manually forging, but today’s threat actors work with purely-digital fakes with an increasingly-advanced toolset including ‘deepfakes’ that work even on live video feeds. At the same time, Twitter advertisers have seen billions wiped off their market caps as the platform struggles with its ID verification. On top of the growing scale of digital fraudsters, a surprising amount of businesses are willing to let a small amount of fraud occur. Companies need to carefully plan how to avoid fraud, but more importantly learn from the experience of falling victim to scams.This week, we spoke to Mike Tuchen, CEO of identity tech firm Onfido, to discuss the current threat landscape, how the tech sector can match threatening tech with detection systems, and best practice going forward.

Metaverse technology: although it still hasn’t found its feet, it’s the headline-grabbing area of development that has seen massive investment in just the past few years. Meta has spent over $15 billion on the tech through its Reality Labs division, and Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, and more have all begun development using variations on metaverse tech.But like any new technology, metaverse tech will also usher in new security risks, from innovative threat actors and existing vulnerabilities inherited by building this new frontier on legacy architecture.This week, we spoke to Rick McElroy, Principal Cyber Security Strategist at VMware, about the opportunities and challenges metaverse tech, and what we can do while it’s still in its infancy.