Cory O'Daniel has had an interesting path to technology, growing his career in a number of cloud architect roles at Ripple, DealScience and The RealReal. He has rich experience in DevOps, the cloud and platform engineering. But outside of tech, he is married with 2 kids, living in Southern California. He loves driving (and destroying) RC cars - like the ones that go 65-70 miles per hour. He jumps them off a lot of ramps, his highest jump behind 20 feet upwards... which of course, he landed.

Cory noticed that there is a huge knowledge gap regarding the cloud, especially during his time doing professional services. He would leave a project post completion, and see a major gap in how the client understood what was built. He and his co-founders had the idea to build a product to allow platform engineers to diagram their infra - and fuel developers engineering process.

This is the creation story of Massdriver.

Sponsors

• Rapyd Cloud
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://www.massdriver.cloud/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/coryodaniel

Torrey Leonard lived in Maryland prior to moving to New York City. In 7th grade, his claim to fame was building the world's largest Minecraft server in the world. In early high school, he had over a million users, made 6 figures, and was fueled by open source software that still runs on most Minecraft servers today. Outside of tech and gaming, he loves to play pickleball and really enjoys skiing - though he confesses that in New York, it's harder to do these hobbies, financially and logistically.

Last summer, Torrey built a platform that allowed you to build out voice agents. After doing so, he realized that there wasn't a good way to do this through a UI, and he realized this was an obvious thing that needed to be built. He decided to leave his prior company to pursue this vision - which headed towards the Zapier for call center agents.

This is the creation story of Thoughtly.

Sponsors

• Rapyd Cloud
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://thought.ly/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/torrey-leonard/

Today, we are releasing another episode in our series entitled Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, sponsored by the City of Dubai.

Dubai is the new global center of gravity, connecting the world in a way few places can. As a hub for trade, tourism, innovation, and finance, Dubai offers the ideal environment for startups and scale-ups to thrive. Entrepreneurs find a home here, whether in health-tech, fintech, AI, or renewable energy, supported by SME-focused programs that empower high-potential companies to scale globally. From flexible regulations to tax incentives, world-class infrastructure to access to global investors managing $1 trillion, Dubai understands what businesses need to scale fast.

Today, we are speaking with Dr. Marwan Al Zarouni, CEO of AI for the Dubai Department of Economy & Tourism. Dr. Marwan. He is going to help walk us through how Dubai is creating a foundational hub for AI, Blockchain, and the intersection of both.

• Questions:

1. Tell me and my audience a little bit about you.
2. You are CEO of AI for the DET. What does that entail? What are you driving in this position, leading your department?
3. It feels like blockchain is still trying to find its place in the mainstream, i.e., utility, security or currency, while AI is settling in some - where are both of these areas going?
4. While AI is a major focus, Dubai has also exceedingly been adopting blockchain. How do you see these two technologies interacting in various sectors, especially since you're also the CEO of Dubai Blockchain Centre.
5. How is Dubai addressing ethical challenges in AI adoption, especially in areas like data privacy and transparency?
6. AI is rapidly evolving globally, but how do you see Dubai positioning itself as a leader in the AI space?What’s your outlook for the city’s AI ecosystem in the next 5-10 years, and how are you working towards it today?
7. What is Dubai doing to attract promising and leading AI and blockchain companies to Dubai? What does the city offer companies in this space from a competitive advantage standpoint?

Links

• http://marwan.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmarwan/
• https://blockchaincenter.ae/
• https://dubaiaicampus.com/
• https://www.difc.ae/
• https://www.investindubai.gov.ae/en/why-dubai/d33-agenda