Breaking the Language Barrier: Inside Kudo’s Live Translation Revolution

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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Event Tech Talk Show.
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Today we're talking to Fardad Zabatian. Did I get that right Fardad? Yeah. Okay, awesome.
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Fardad is the founder and CEO of an organization called Kudo.
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They are a real-time language translation platform powering multilingual events and meetings.
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Now, Fardad has spent years at the intersection of language, events and technology.
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He built Kudo to solve one of the toughest problems in global events,
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and that's talking and understanding across languages in live settings.
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Kudo now offers seamless, continuous speech translation powered by human interpreters
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and cutting-edge AI, supporting dozens of languages and integrated into video platforms,
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hybrid events, and in-person experiences.
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Now in this episode, we'll go from Fardad's early career and what drew him into
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events and language tech to the story behind Kudo's founding Gross.
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So Fardad, thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule
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to join me here in Dubai for this episode and welcome to the podcast.
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Thank you. Thanks very much for having me. So looking at your career and what
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brought you to launch Kudo, what did the early days of your career look like?
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How did you get started out.
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Well, I'm happy actually that we do this recording not very far from where I was born and raised.
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So I'm originally from Iran, born and raised in Tehran, which is only an hour flight from here.
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I haven't been there, unfortunately, for 20 plus years.
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I'm based in New York. I was eight, nine years old, and my dad was serving the
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Iranian army during the war between Iran and Iraq.
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And think about an eight, nine-year-old who's seeing his dad only a week out of two months.
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So I was watching one of these UN Security Council on TV when they were discussing
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a potential ceasefire between Iran and Iraq after a seven, eight-year war.
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And I was fascinated by how interpreters really make it possible for all these
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head of states to be able to communicate and debate.
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And I thought this is an extraordinary talent.
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And this was kind of early on my inspiration.
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So fast forward 20 years after, I'm in California, in San Francisco,
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and I finished my grad school, and I want to start my very first company in the States back in 2002.
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So that led me to start MediaVision, which was a company providing equipment
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for language interpretation and conferencing.
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Thinking about your first experience, it dawned on me what a high-pressure job
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being an interpreter for people in government and power,
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often negotiating things like laws and treaties and things like that.
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One slip-up could mean terrible things, right? I guess. Absolutely. Absolutely.
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I'm always fascinated even after being close to this very talented group of
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professional interpreters. I'm still fascinated.
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If you ask me just to repeat what I'm hearing in the same language at the same
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time, I'm not able to do that.
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What if I'm being asked to translate into a second or third language?
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So definitely quite talented individuals that are very limited number of them out there.
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And this is called simultaneous interpretation when you are interpreting into
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a second language real time simultaneously.
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I definitely think there's probably a business in domestic interpretation as
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well because my wife's Dutch and I'm English and we definitely misunderstand
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each other. quite a lot of the time.
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So I think maybe I need somebody in between me and her to help out a little
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bit. Yeah, I'm not sure an interpreter would help that.
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A mediator, boxing coach, something like that maybe.
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What did the early days of media vision look like then? Because,
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you know, it sounds like 20 years ago, that was probably quite early on in the
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days, maybe of companies like that existing.
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Like, was there a particular type of event that you guys ended up focusing on at the time?
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Yeah, so definitely a few main differences compared to today is I used to go
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to Kinko's, which was the print shop at the time, to print brochures and mail to prospects.
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So, again, as a new immigrant in the age of 25, starting a business in a new
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country has its own challenges.
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But we had a good journey, you know. we grew the business, open offices in Washington,
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D.C., in New York, in Paris, in London, in Geneva.
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And over 20 years, we were very fortunate to support many large organizations
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with their technology to be able to do conferencing and interpretation,
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including the UN headquarter in New York.
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I recall one of my proudest moments was giving a tour behind the scene to my
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dad showing security counsel and the technology behind this and told him the
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whole story when I was eight years old. So.
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When it comes to supporting events, I started a second company to be able to
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focus on the events called Conference Rental back in 2007.
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We did like G20, IMF World Bank annual meetings, really large size events,
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sometimes 50,000 people coming in different venues.
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We were mobilizing and both companies really excelled at this space.
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And again, another proud moment.
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I was at G20 in Cabo, Mexico, and it was the first night the event started.
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I was watching fireworks in this very highly secure area, and I looked to my
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right and President Obama was standing next to me.
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Did not notice and i basically
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said hello and introduced myself and i
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said you know i'm my my company from u.s is doing
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all the interpretation and conferencing and he
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said thank you he shaked my hands so yeah so these moments are quite special
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i think the honest truth there something you said is that we probably get into
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these things and set these businesses up not for the money or the glory but
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to make our parents proud i think i've had the pleasure of being able to do that myself.
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I'm very fortunate as well, you know, to be in privileged situations where you
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can meet some very interesting or influential people as well.
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Before we move on to a bit more about Kudo, this podcast is listened to by a
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lot of fellow founders and other entrepreneurs or people even just starting
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out in the events industry.
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Do you think it's more challenging now to launch a business or easier now to
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challenge, to launch a business?
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So a number of businesses that I have been personally involved and started in
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the last five years accelerated quite significantly. It's just much easier to start a business.
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To succeed and to grow and to expand, you really need to have your own moat
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and basically differentiated approach.
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However, starting a business, it's much easier. Of course, where you are,
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what country, what kind of access to the market you have.
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But I do recall I was going into library,
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public library in Silicon Valley to get the list of audiovisual rental companies
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to be able to print things.
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A brochure and mail them physically because there was not a very good directory
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this is 2003 right i've got today
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now you can put together a complete go-to-market strategy within hours,
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with all the companies within a specific market and the right messaging and have.
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Your agent do it for you right without even
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doing the work yourself i think
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maybe though in a world where so much
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of the marketing message is delivered either on
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platforms like LinkedIn or through email maybe
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going back to printing those brochures and mailing them
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to those specific customers and targets that you want to get in front
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of maybe that's the hack maybe that's how you get a
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good start this year for a few years I stopped
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doing that which I should resume I think for every
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purchase order every contract that we
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sign i used to write a hand written
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thank you card and that was
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quite nice but now it's a bit challenging with all these international based
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customers and what by the time the mail gets there you know you'd be like that
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sat there just like signing all these cards maybe there's a business there for
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somebody to to set up and help founders like ourselves get those get those cards
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and things out to those special customers I'm sure there's going to be a thank you card.ai coming up.
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Adam, you've forgotten Fodad's birthday again. So you had two amazing businesses
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and Conference Ventral still are very much established and thriving business.
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We had Andrew, the CEO, recently on another episode of the podcast.
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What led you to launch Kudo then? In some ways, some could argue in slight competition
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kind of thing. Yeah, very, very good. Very good question.
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So when you are really focusing on a mission,
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And there are many ways to get there. And as you build technology.
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Build basically solutions to make it more accessible for users,
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then you realize how bigger actually the market is than what you really thought at the beginning.
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So that's kind of the bet I put for my career over the last two decades.
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So of course during i moved
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to new york to manage that un project i was talking about
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and it took about three four years 200
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million dollars in technology capital two billion dollar overall renovation
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the entire building and delays there was a sandy storm hurricane in new york
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and And then it flooded some of the buildings.
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So three, four years, $200 million and amazing opportunity for me and my business at the time.
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But then I realized that not everybody has the infrastructure,
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has the use case, has the resources as the UN.
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What if we provide language accessibility for businesses?
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And definitely this market is going to grow significantly and there are more
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businesses that are going global.
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This is a couple of years before pandemic.
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So global workforce is going to be a key for any thriving business,
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access to talent, access to diverse customers, and definitely language still
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the last piece of the puzzle.
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So that led to the idea of Kudo, starting Kudo, while, of course,
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not trying to take over the market or the piece of the pie that is done by that traditional.
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Highly kind of on-site experience, but more for a whole new space that I think
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was a blue ocean at the time.
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Yeah i think it's i think it's important when
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you see an opportunity to kind of
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create a market maybe or expand into a market often
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companies kind of naturally add that to their existing
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infrastructure their business and then sometimes
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it can be actual undoing kind of because it becomes very confusing to
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a to a customer where your focus is and
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what you're specialized in and things like that and i
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also think there's often people that are focused on
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searching for a particular thing and want to see a particular message
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versus going to another business that says
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they offer what they've already decided maybe is not the right solution
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for them yeah so i think that's a smart strategy in terms of like having both
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businesses that are ultimately probably quite complementary to each other giving
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people lots of different options how is how has kudo kudo evolved over those
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years then from its first inception to the business that is today.
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So, it's been evolving and there's still a lot ahead of us. I've been evolving as well.
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I've been adopting because, you know, when you do security counsel,
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like, failure is not an option.
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When you provide equipment for head of states and you want them to be able to
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discuss very pressing topics, you focus on quality.
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You focus on perfection, right?
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So initial idea
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of kudo was we address okay
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we try to bring all we learned into a
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software platform that there is no initial equipment cost infrastructure so
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people they can start using the platform day one as a as a sas platform and
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of course human interpretation was really our focus and our expertise.
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So we thought about these are very small group of professionals living remotely
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in different countries. And.
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There are very few group of interpreters that are based in New York,
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based in Geneva, based in Paris,
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based in London, who have access to these on-site venues and events.
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Otherwise, you need to travel them into your event space.
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And again, additional costs. So what if we build a marketplace that we can bring these quality,
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highly trained professional interpreters through our platform,
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while also people they can meet on our platform, purpose-built with multilingual,
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but really focusing on this product-led.
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So the event space within language interpretation was very high touch.
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We wanted to build a platform that our partners,
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event producers, AV technicians they
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can really do it themselves and
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we just support them based on quite a
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SaaS business model so think
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about the SaaS platform coupled with a
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marketplace when you have interpreters one side and you can bring them to your
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video calls and then we start integrating into different video and event platform
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so we have about six native integrations and multiple add-on through iframe and widget.
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So, and really focusing on making sure.
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Kudo is your translation partner
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that you can bring into wherever the meetings and
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events are you know on site in different video
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platform in person or hybrid in terms
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of ai then and that part because
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i know that that plays a big part in kudo in terms of
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what ai the ai translation i just heard
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it 20 times today and it's still 10 a.m it's
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that thing that isn't it he's like overused at the moment obviously ai
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seems to have blown up and is rapidly evolving everything
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at the moment it seems and really changing the
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curve in which where people work also it
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seems their expectations as well it's getting
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to the point where it seems that if ai isn't baked
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in as part and parcel of your products and platform already
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you kind of potentially almost dismissed of
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like you're lagging behind and stuff but it's clearly been a part of
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your platform and part of kudo for for a
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while but has it had a more recent impact has
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it allowed you to do more for customers and events and things like that and
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what's your general opinion just on ai are you a heavy user yourself or is it
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more just integrated into into
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kudo as a service so i think there are two areas whether we use ai Bye.
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At kudo where i'm utilizing ai myself and the other one what is kudo ai and what we do so.
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I think i have this philosophy of
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a music chair game right kind of
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a everybody thinks that they are the last person with a seat and the ai is the
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the dj here right so i'm an accountant I'm not going to be replaced I still
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have a seat I'm a I'm a physician I'm a auditor you know,
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I'm an interpreter I'm a translator I think
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I'm a CEO right so there is definitely this
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kind of idea that I still have a chair
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I still have a seat I'm going to be the last one in the in
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the chain I don't
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think that way I think the coupled of
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AI and human is is pretty fascinating amazing
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i i'm quite more efficient
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these days because you know i do a
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lot of planning do a lot of thinking with the support of ai my messaging internally
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externally at the same time i want to share my last week i was at ai summit
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in new york we were providing ai translation for the event 11 stages.
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We had a booth. There were about 100 plus AI companies on the show floor.
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And I walked around and definitely agentic this, agentic that.
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And I looked at, if not maybe.
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80, 90% or maybe more of all these companies are focusing on adding efficiency
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and speed to an existing workflow.
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So we can pay your bills faster. We can do your research faster.
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We can basically provide you a better workflow efficiency, save you time, 10X, 100X faster.
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So my first question is around whether we, let's say if we are using AI and
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become a lot more efficient, a lot faster.
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And we're going to save time, let's say 20%, 30% time every day,
00:20:17.171 --> 00:20:25.991
are we supposed to work more or use that 20, 30% time on doing something other than work?
00:20:26.091 --> 00:20:30.311
That's kind of my big question. So what are we doing with all these additional
00:20:30.311 --> 00:20:33.371
efficiency and productivity tools because of AI?
00:20:33.951 --> 00:20:38.131
Are we like adding better quality to our daily life?
00:20:38.651 --> 00:20:46.891
And what was disappointing to me, I couldn't find a problem that anybody really
00:20:46.891 --> 00:20:49.231
solved, an actual big problem.
00:20:49.431 --> 00:20:51.931
It's not about adding speed. I can do it more.
00:20:52.131 --> 00:20:59.711
But here's a problem and here's I can solve it. Like so, there were two companies
00:20:59.711 --> 00:21:02.471
that they're providing AI for the event.
00:21:03.391 --> 00:21:07.591
One was doing summary at the end of each session quickly.
00:21:08.231 --> 00:21:13.151
Great, I cannot attend all 11 stages at the same time.
00:21:13.291 --> 00:21:18.831
I cannot choose one, but I can hear and read the summary of the other ones.
00:21:19.271 --> 00:21:22.491
Amazing. A problem being solved.
00:21:22.611 --> 00:21:25.751
The second one was Kudo AI. there were this
00:21:25.751 --> 00:21:29.411
was an open floor 11 stages in
00:21:29.411 --> 00:21:32.391
Javid Center when you hear everybody so we provided
00:21:32.391 --> 00:21:38.871
captioning and on the phone they had 80 countries representative so we had people
00:21:38.871 --> 00:21:42.551
from Japan Korea coming to our booth and saying thank you for providing this
00:21:42.551 --> 00:21:48.611
because we have a hard time hearing what's being said plus you know some limited
00:21:48.611 --> 00:21:52.231
proficiency in language so I'm quite happy.
00:21:52.391 --> 00:21:58.071
I'm very proud that we're actually solving real problem with Kudo AI.
00:21:58.311 --> 00:22:01.511
Talking about Kudo AI, we launched it in January 2023.
00:22:02.631 --> 00:22:03.231
First,
00:22:05.055 --> 00:22:11.035
business-ready product for speech-to-speech, announced publicly.
00:22:11.415 --> 00:22:13.555
We have five patents on it.
00:22:13.935 --> 00:22:17.895
It's a solution we've been working prior to that for about a year.
00:22:18.415 --> 00:22:24.395
We are application, not foundational model. We're application level.
00:22:24.695 --> 00:22:34.635
And the question about is it good enough versus high quality is more of our
00:22:34.635 --> 00:22:38.735
perception and our kind of a mindset.
00:22:39.135 --> 00:22:43.355
And this is for me personally has been a challenge over this years.
00:22:43.515 --> 00:22:50.195
Again, going back to security council, going back to G20 and the expectation
00:22:50.195 --> 00:22:54.375
of failure is not an option versus.
00:22:55.735 --> 00:23:03.075
Hey, you can't solve language accessibility problem in businesses by human interpretation.
00:23:03.295 --> 00:23:05.015
There's just not enough of them.
00:23:05.315 --> 00:23:08.235
They just cannot do it. That's why none of these businesses,
00:23:08.255 --> 00:23:11.895
they ever tried a live language translation, right?
00:23:12.095 --> 00:23:15.855
So it's a blue ocean.
00:23:16.015 --> 00:23:24.655
And that's fascinating to see our Kudo AI is growing 300 multiples, right?
00:23:24.795 --> 00:23:27.075
300x over two years.
00:23:27.435 --> 00:23:30.675
Also, we see our human interpretation
00:23:30.675 --> 00:23:34.755
conversation growing at much lower pace
00:23:34.755 --> 00:23:39.035
but still growing yeah i think it's really interesting some of the points you
00:23:39.035 --> 00:23:43.415
made there because i'm sure nobody's asking for things to be translated quicker
00:23:43.415 --> 00:23:48.495
at an event and i think many most people if you ask them seriously would value
00:23:48.495 --> 00:23:51.135
quality over speed of anything.
00:23:52.398 --> 00:23:57.438
Whether that's travel, food, relationships, whatever that might be,
00:23:57.558 --> 00:23:59.858
right? Quality outshines most things.
00:24:00.358 --> 00:24:04.818
It's interesting that those companies are trying to solve things faster.
00:24:05.258 --> 00:24:09.758
I was listening to a podcast on the way here and Elon Musk was predicting that
00:24:09.758 --> 00:24:11.758
within the next 10 years work will be an option.
00:24:11.978 --> 00:24:15.978
So it makes me wonder where those businesses and those jobs and things like
00:24:15.978 --> 00:24:17.898
that are heading anecdotally.
00:24:18.078 --> 00:24:20.738
But back to your point about you and this
00:24:20.738 --> 00:24:23.678
other company who i know we also work with them for
00:24:23.678 --> 00:24:26.498
our show really solving two two major
00:24:26.498 --> 00:24:33.078
challenges accessibility one making it a comfortable and an experience which
00:24:33.078 --> 00:24:37.578
they can actually accurately understand what's being spoken about and retain
00:24:37.578 --> 00:24:42.938
that information and send to this other company the ability to not miss anything
00:24:42.938 --> 00:24:45.418
else but again also retain that information because,
00:24:45.998 --> 00:24:49.198
we as humans have especially when
00:24:49.198 --> 00:24:52.018
there's a challenge around understanding have a
00:24:52.018 --> 00:24:54.658
real hard time holding on to that
00:24:54.658 --> 00:24:57.458
information that we learn events and things like that
00:24:57.458 --> 00:25:02.078
and then being able to take that back into a business and actually make use
00:25:02.078 --> 00:25:05.458
of it whether that's as a founder or that's relaying that back to a team to
00:25:05.458 --> 00:25:09.258
make use of it and things like that right and that's that's 90% of the value
00:25:09.258 --> 00:25:16.318
of an event is education and information to help sectors and industries and businesses grow.
00:25:17.298 --> 00:25:22.458
Something I researched before we came on about what Kudo's also been doing is
00:25:22.458 --> 00:25:26.638
you recently launched, I think it's called a client glossary management system,
00:25:26.818 --> 00:25:29.778
which gives the actual user control over things like terminology.
00:25:30.238 --> 00:25:34.398
Can you tell us a little bit more about that and why that's important for organizations
00:25:34.398 --> 00:25:36.018
to kind of have that level of control?
00:25:37.178 --> 00:25:41.418
Happy to, but I want to just open something about language accessibility.
00:25:41.978 --> 00:25:45.198
So, And you are very lucky.
00:25:46.278 --> 00:25:52.678
You are a native English speaker. By World Bank Statistics.
00:25:54.262 --> 00:25:59.602
People with proficiency in English, on average, they make 40% more compared
00:25:59.602 --> 00:26:03.022
to those with limited proficiency in English.
00:26:03.382 --> 00:26:08.842
If you attend any conferences, when there is a Q&A, you see all the English
00:26:08.842 --> 00:26:12.642
native speakers, they raise their hand, ask questions.
00:26:12.962 --> 00:26:20.162
But you hardly hear from Koreans, Japanese, Chinese to raise their hand because
00:26:20.162 --> 00:26:21.562
they're just not comfortable.
00:26:21.562 --> 00:26:30.502
In a global enterprise kind of a workforce mentality, employees, they never ask,
00:26:31.362 --> 00:26:38.082
hey, I cannot follow our CEO's town hall meeting or this training that was done
00:26:38.082 --> 00:26:40.562
and recorded by our US team.
00:26:40.842 --> 00:26:46.122
I'm not able to follow because they worry about the next promotion cycle.
00:26:46.322 --> 00:26:50.862
They worry about, oh, maybe we should change. And our vision,
00:26:51.182 --> 00:26:56.922
our mission is really about a bit of a balance, creating a bit of a balance.
00:26:57.142 --> 00:27:04.422
So language is not necessarily the limit to growth potential for individuals and businesses.
00:27:04.882 --> 00:27:08.922
And if you look at this kind of a massive opportunity.
00:27:10.313 --> 00:27:13.493
AI is the only way to be able to do that, right?
00:27:14.013 --> 00:27:22.653
And easy access solution. Now I want to kind of a, it's a good segue to talk about glossary, right?
00:27:22.833 --> 00:27:30.633
So we see, there's a lot of AI companies that talk about translation, speech, AI voice.
00:27:32.153 --> 00:27:40.493
ASR, transcription, live captioning definitely there is no shortage of AI companies
00:27:40.493 --> 00:27:43.413
in this space 2-3 people just started,
00:27:43.653 --> 00:27:49.673
great traction there is a lot of need, I'm happy to see this number of businesses
00:27:49.673 --> 00:27:51.193
out there that are starting,
00:27:52.593 --> 00:27:58.033
our bet is about quality of translation and about But.
00:27:58.997 --> 00:28:05.857
Customization. It's about using customization for your brand,
00:28:06.097 --> 00:28:11.497
for your specific terminologies, product names, names of people, right?
00:28:12.097 --> 00:28:17.617
Mr. Green is a CEO and Mr. Green doesn't need to be translated in different colors, right?
00:28:18.037 --> 00:28:21.797
So these are, again, this is a very simple example, but that's where we are
00:28:21.797 --> 00:28:27.997
investing to make sure also not only you can upload all of this,
00:28:28.097 --> 00:28:33.757
but also you You can really have AI to really take advantage of your continuous
00:28:33.757 --> 00:28:35.977
innovation in this space.
00:28:36.157 --> 00:28:42.657
So we see this as a great differentiator, but as a great way for creating that
00:28:42.657 --> 00:28:45.417
excellent experience for users.
00:28:45.577 --> 00:28:48.997
Because, yes, we are all skeptical about AI, right?
00:28:49.177 --> 00:28:55.997
And for me, if I see an error on AI generated anything, it stands out.
00:28:56.137 --> 00:28:58.217
Computer to human error generated.
00:28:58.757 --> 00:29:04.137
Over the last 20 years, I shared, nobody asked, what's the accuracy of your human interpreters?
00:29:04.277 --> 00:29:07.037
Are they 99% or 95%?
00:29:07.357 --> 00:29:10.637
You know, the answer would be depends on the day and depends if.
00:29:11.457 --> 00:29:13.197
You know, how's it going?
00:29:13.417 --> 00:29:17.677
And overall, the speaker and all of that. But you can't really measure accuracy
00:29:17.677 --> 00:29:22.237
of your physician, of your interpreter, of your chef.
00:29:22.457 --> 00:29:26.637
You know, it depends, you know, just how it was made today, right?
00:29:27.377 --> 00:29:31.777
But on AI, oh, what's the accuracy? What's the latency? I want in seconds, right?
00:29:32.097 --> 00:29:41.577
Milliseconds. So these are the things that we are continue to see as human skepticism
00:29:41.577 --> 00:29:43.997
when it comes to technology.
00:29:44.357 --> 00:29:49.517
But it's good thing. It's good to go in with this kind of a doubt and experience.
00:29:49.997 --> 00:29:52.337
It's a really interesting point you make, isn't it? Because.
00:29:53.218 --> 00:30:00.618
We ultimately put this pressure on technology to be perfect and infallible 100% of the time.
00:30:01.198 --> 00:30:05.538
And often that is down to our opinion of how that should actually also play
00:30:05.538 --> 00:30:08.438
out, not necessarily how it actually, the truth of how it plays out.
00:30:08.778 --> 00:30:13.518
But yet, those technologies and solutions are ultimately built by people that
00:30:13.518 --> 00:30:15.318
are themselves imperfect, right?
00:30:15.658 --> 00:30:20.758
I know going into my event every single year that not 100% of things is going
00:30:20.758 --> 00:30:25.758
to go according to plan or go well there's always going to be misses on the
00:30:25.758 --> 00:30:30.438
day kind of thing and to the accuracy point it was interesting when we first
00:30:30.438 --> 00:30:33.918
started using translation that event tech live was often,
00:30:34.438 --> 00:30:39.378
translated to or interpreted as event tech live most of the time so we had a
00:30:39.378 --> 00:30:43.058
challenge around that one with our with our own name before we move on just
00:30:43.058 --> 00:30:46.038
tracking back a little bit too because i think you make a really really interesting
00:30:46.038 --> 00:30:50.378
point about how language can be a differentiator in,
00:30:51.218 --> 00:30:53.098
economic opportunity for people and things like that.
00:30:53.778 --> 00:30:56.678
I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to assume that you maybe never watched
00:30:56.678 --> 00:31:00.398
this program, but did you ever watch a program called Star Trek by any chance?
00:31:02.644 --> 00:31:07.004
No, I'm not like one of those Star Trek that watch all the episodes,
00:31:07.164 --> 00:31:11.644
but I think I know what episode you're talking about that was an interpreter, right?
00:31:11.844 --> 00:31:15.704
Well, the interesting thing that I found out, and there was a question about
00:31:15.704 --> 00:31:21.304
like, well, if this human race is traveling across all of these galaxies and
00:31:21.304 --> 00:31:25.184
meeting all of these different aliens, how come everybody can speak English? Okay.
00:31:25.944 --> 00:31:29.824
The law goes that actually they had a really advanced translation system that
00:31:29.824 --> 00:31:34.204
allowed them to interpret any language and hear it, And then they spoke back and blah, blah, blah.
00:31:35.264 --> 00:31:41.004
Do you think, you're the experienced one in here, how quickly do you think that
00:31:41.004 --> 00:31:44.424
technology is going to come down the road where me and you will be able to be
00:31:44.424 --> 00:31:49.684
sat across from each other like this now, speaking our own native languages,
00:31:50.244 --> 00:31:53.204
but fully understanding each other in just a normal setting?
00:31:53.204 --> 00:31:55.224
Do you think that's far down the road?
00:31:56.004 --> 00:31:59.264
So you're asking how many days or how many months? or I
00:31:59.264 --> 00:32:01.924
mean if it's coming as quickly as days and months then I think we're in
00:32:01.924 --> 00:32:04.624
for a treat but yeah maybe it's maybe it's a few years out I don't
00:32:04.624 --> 00:32:08.824
know maybe it takes somebody like Apple or Google or things like that to really
00:32:08.824 --> 00:32:14.884
really push that technology but yeah so I would never say never you know so
00:32:14.884 --> 00:32:22.384
definitely there is a day that we're going to be able to communicate with very very minimum latency.
00:32:23.184 --> 00:32:29.324
Even for us, as I kind of, I tend to process what I want to say right now,
00:32:29.504 --> 00:32:32.764
there might be some emotions involved and so on.
00:32:33.284 --> 00:32:37.444
But what I want to say is one of the verticals that are quite,
00:32:37.864 --> 00:32:44.484
so when it comes to speech translation, we're looking at three areas,
00:32:44.644 --> 00:32:48.584
accuracy, fluency, and latency. Accuracy is.
00:32:49.564 --> 00:32:56.084
How much of a content I'm able to follow? Am I able, is it going to be a major loss in meanings?
00:32:56.684 --> 00:33:01.484
Fluency, how natural this translation is, how human-like the translation is.
00:33:01.864 --> 00:33:08.224
And latency is really whether you count by words or by seconds or milliseconds.
00:33:08.224 --> 00:33:12.904
How long does it take from the source language to the target language?
00:33:13.204 --> 00:33:19.704
These are the three areas that they need to improve and measured on a continuous basis.
00:33:20.304 --> 00:33:25.904
Now, going back to the example, you and I sitting across from each other and
00:33:25.904 --> 00:33:30.504
having a conversation, it's about what kind of a conversation we're having. Am I asking direction?
00:33:30.864 --> 00:33:34.404
Am I asking for your recommendation, what to order on the menu?
00:33:34.804 --> 00:33:43.084
Or you're my therapist and I'm sharing something quite important with you and I want to hear you.
00:33:43.084 --> 00:33:50.884
So one of the verticals that has been quite surprising for me personally is houses of worships.
00:33:51.204 --> 00:34:01.744
This is really why kind of a very sentiment, emotions matter the most,
00:34:01.864 --> 00:34:03.964
rather than words by word translation.
00:34:03.964 --> 00:34:08.984
The voice, the emotional voice in the AI matters.
00:34:09.244 --> 00:34:15.504
And it's one of the fastest growing area for AR speech translation.
00:34:16.024 --> 00:34:21.704
Why? Because churches, mosques, they're everywhere, right?
00:34:21.904 --> 00:34:27.244
And they're not enough. Even some of them, they have access to volunteers.
00:34:27.244 --> 00:34:31.164
But there are some, because of immigration,
00:34:31.504 --> 00:34:37.044
because of like very diverse communities in very remote areas in different countries,
00:34:37.304 --> 00:34:44.784
there is a need, there is actual need for people to come in and attend a service on a Sunday.
00:34:47.106 --> 00:34:55.466
Really gave us a lot of hope that definitely you can overcome some of these
00:34:55.466 --> 00:35:01.606
gaps of human touch when you deliver speech powered by AI,
00:35:01.966 --> 00:35:04.826
because that's the best option you have.
00:35:05.746 --> 00:35:09.486
And then, of course, this option is evolving constantly. So when you have,
00:35:09.926 --> 00:35:16.666
when we can speak the same language, why we want to use any tool in between.
00:35:17.106 --> 00:35:21.846
If we're not able to communicate, anything that we have access to is good enough.
00:35:24.866 --> 00:35:29.026
But then there is a big question about language learning, how important it is
00:35:29.026 --> 00:35:33.306
for our kids to start learning a second language, third language.
00:35:34.646 --> 00:35:38.706
It's a really interesting point you make there, because when I've been doing
00:35:38.706 --> 00:35:43.206
some research before our podcast and my questions were going to revolve around
00:35:43.206 --> 00:35:47.406
like where's translation heading next, There was a lot of terminology that I'd
00:35:47.406 --> 00:35:49.606
not really come across before,
00:35:49.626 --> 00:35:54.046
and it was around voice cloning, self-learning glossaries,
00:35:54.626 --> 00:35:56.166
context-aware translation,
00:35:56.866 --> 00:35:59.206
dubbing of synthetic voices and things like that.
00:36:00.115 --> 00:36:04.755
It sounds to me like, although that all will probably happen and come down the road,
00:36:05.315 --> 00:36:09.495
from what you're saying, the important thing is not just the words being spoken,
00:36:09.495 --> 00:36:16.175
but the inflection and how then people understand and perceive based on emotional
00:36:16.175 --> 00:36:17.395
tones and things like that.
00:36:17.695 --> 00:36:24.135
We all know we can say the same word, say it happily, angrily, sad, things like that.
00:36:24.135 --> 00:36:27.495
It's the same word but the way that we speak it ultimately
00:36:27.495 --> 00:36:31.135
changes the implications of
00:36:31.135 --> 00:36:34.015
it when somebody's receiving that right so do
00:36:34.015 --> 00:36:36.835
you think that element there will be the
00:36:36.835 --> 00:36:41.135
most important kind of evolution of this technology in the future in the in
00:36:41.135 --> 00:36:44.735
the way in the quality and the way that it's used absolutely absolutely these
00:36:44.735 --> 00:36:51.475
are these are like a context is very important right so when When we're walking
00:36:51.475 --> 00:36:54.775
here to the recording studio, you made a comment about the weather.
00:36:57.792 --> 00:37:02.272
If I was your translator, and I was continuing to translate that,
00:37:02.432 --> 00:37:08.472
it's very strange weather in Dubai today because of the sandstorm.
00:37:09.172 --> 00:37:16.132
It's almost like as if it's dark, it's cloudy, as if it's polluted.
00:37:16.392 --> 00:37:24.092
So if you don't have context of what was said, the translation quality is going to be pretty bad.
00:37:24.832 --> 00:37:28.392
And it goes back to your earlier comment, nobody's asking
00:37:28.392 --> 00:37:32.412
for speed for translation they ask for quality so
00:37:32.412 --> 00:37:35.912
we see it's a compromise between
00:37:35.912 --> 00:37:38.812
speed and quality so for example
00:37:38.812 --> 00:37:41.752
we have the ability it's a feature flag
00:37:41.752 --> 00:37:44.772
on our product to listen to the prior 10
00:37:44.772 --> 00:37:48.232
sentences of what was said through LLM
00:37:48.232 --> 00:37:51.952
and then bring it back the translation
00:37:51.952 --> 00:37:55.012
so this of course adds this feature
00:37:55.012 --> 00:37:58.272
is going to add more latency because we
00:37:58.272 --> 00:38:01.792
need to process that right so of course
00:38:01.792 --> 00:38:04.612
features like voice cloning you know do i want to
00:38:04.612 --> 00:38:12.452
sound like myself in other languages if i'm speaking in a group so or i'm okay
00:38:12.452 --> 00:38:18.032
when you have that function also do i need to opt into some data privacy who
00:38:18.032 --> 00:38:23.232
else is going to use my voice who else is gonna actually clone my voice.
00:38:24.709 --> 00:38:28.469
I don't know, for no reason, I don't have a great voice, but yeah.
00:38:28.609 --> 00:38:32.009
So who wants to get into your bank account might have the, the,
00:38:32.009 --> 00:38:34.229
the required resources and things like that to do with that.
00:38:34.349 --> 00:38:41.029
Great news, by the way, there are AI companies that they detect cloned voice by AI.
00:38:41.269 --> 00:38:47.469
So because yeah, there is a lot of voice has been one of the main differentiator
00:38:47.469 --> 00:38:50.329
as far as kind of a authentication for people.
00:38:50.389 --> 00:38:53.569
But now that's a big question as well. See, that's interesting because that
00:38:53.569 --> 00:38:59.489
feels like that should be the responsibility of the network operator to detect
00:38:59.489 --> 00:39:05.729
those while the phone is active to protect its customers from that type of scam.
00:39:06.741 --> 00:39:10.941
Maybe I've got it wrong, but that seems a very logical thing. Yeah, I'm sure.
00:39:11.301 --> 00:39:16.261
I'm sure. But, you know, when I think you probably sign your agreement with
00:39:16.261 --> 00:39:20.041
the bank, there's a lot of disclosure on the bottom that... Nobody wants to
00:39:20.041 --> 00:39:21.761
take responsibility for anything.
00:39:22.381 --> 00:39:26.721
But that being said, you know, maybe it probably is different in different parts of the world.
00:39:26.721 --> 00:39:33.101
In the uk there is you know institutions in place to regulate that kind of thing
00:39:33.101 --> 00:39:37.961
and give the customer protection from from fraud and things like that but it's
00:39:37.961 --> 00:39:39.801
it's just it's just an interesting,
00:39:40.461 --> 00:39:43.361
interesting way of thinking about things that this
00:39:43.361 --> 00:39:46.741
technology is fantastic and it's very helpful but like
00:39:46.741 --> 00:39:50.021
anything it can be used for good or or bad right exactly
00:39:50.021 --> 00:39:52.981
exactly i want to talk a little bit more
00:39:52.981 --> 00:39:56.021
about something you mentioned quite early on
00:39:56.021 --> 00:39:59.141
which is about partnerships for me the
00:39:59.141 --> 00:40:02.021
events industry on large is built on
00:40:02.021 --> 00:40:06.201
the foundation of fantastic relationships and partnerships between companies
00:40:06.201 --> 00:40:12.421
you know the the outcome of an event is no one person's whole work you know
00:40:12.421 --> 00:40:17.661
even event like event tech live is hundreds of people and dozens of companies
00:40:17.661 --> 00:40:19.841
coming together to make that happen.
00:40:20.541 --> 00:40:24.381
Tell me more about your partners and your reseller ecosystem,
00:40:24.381 --> 00:40:27.881
because I think that's something that's an integral part of what you do today.
00:40:28.061 --> 00:40:32.621
What makes a good partner fit? What should other founders be looking for when
00:40:32.621 --> 00:40:35.361
they're assessing partnerships with other companies?
00:40:36.691 --> 00:40:42.371
So partnerships for us, they're in three categories.
00:40:42.651 --> 00:40:50.151
Like our vendor partners, that we use their tech or their services.
00:40:50.511 --> 00:40:57.871
Then we have technology partners that our tech integrates with them or coexist
00:40:57.871 --> 00:41:03.031
with them in a very happy and collaborative environment.
00:41:03.031 --> 00:41:10.731
And then we have partners that are resellers or people on the ground that actually
00:41:10.731 --> 00:41:18.531
use our tech and really bring the whole event experience or meeting experience for their customers.
00:41:18.831 --> 00:41:26.171
So I believe your question is more about the last two, which is technology partners,
00:41:26.171 --> 00:41:28.851
as well as our event partners.
00:41:28.851 --> 00:41:38.071
So on technology partners, definitely we're just a small piece on the entire event experience.
00:41:38.391 --> 00:41:44.311
We're providing live translation and captioning during live event.
00:41:44.591 --> 00:41:50.031
Of course, we have recording and transcription post-event, but it's all about
00:41:50.031 --> 00:41:55.611
that one day, two day, one hour live experience.
00:41:55.611 --> 00:42:00.391
Yes, there's a lot of work ahead of it and there's a lot of work after it.
00:42:00.871 --> 00:42:06.331
And as you know, in production, in event business, people have a very short memory.
00:42:06.551 --> 00:42:12.051
You're just as good as your very last event. So we want to make sure that that
00:42:12.051 --> 00:42:17.411
last event is always positive, right? Now.
00:42:19.011 --> 00:42:28.771
On, it's all about really coordination. So the challenge and the opportunity for, in my opinion,
00:42:29.711 --> 00:42:38.351
for technology companies in event space is no matter how much tech.
00:42:39.743 --> 00:42:42.203
First solution you have, you
00:42:42.203 --> 00:42:46.623
need at the end of the day, that service element to be able to support it.
00:42:47.163 --> 00:42:55.023
So service mind, customer mind approach from those who have the product vision
00:42:55.023 --> 00:43:01.143
for the founders to me is number one reason for success.
00:43:01.443 --> 00:43:06.043
So definitely if we want to build partnership, technology
00:43:06.043 --> 00:43:09.443
partnership for us is number one priority to
00:43:09.443 --> 00:43:12.403
make sure our partners they have that
00:43:12.403 --> 00:43:19.643
kind of a customer-centric event experience for their tech they understand what
00:43:19.643 --> 00:43:26.823
it means to deliver during that very short time everything that you worked for
00:43:26.823 --> 00:43:31.783
months for it right now and And for any reason,
00:43:31.963 --> 00:43:35.363
if something doesn't work as it's supposed to,
00:43:35.683 --> 00:43:41.723
how to communicate promptly and effectively at the same time,
00:43:41.823 --> 00:43:43.343
not, oh, we'll get back to you.
00:43:43.803 --> 00:43:49.603
So that for us is important on the partnership. Now when it comes to our resellers,
00:43:49.883 --> 00:43:59.943
so we have I think 32 as of today really highly qualified event companies that
00:43:59.943 --> 00:44:07.263
they provide AV conferencing and interpreting services in different regions of the world.
00:44:07.263 --> 00:44:13.563
In Dubai, we have actually three partners And it's growing, right?
00:44:13.743 --> 00:44:21.503
So these are companies that can provide turnkey solution For on-site events
00:44:21.503 --> 00:44:27.403
or hybrid And the success for us is providing reliable tech.
00:44:28.716 --> 00:44:33.196
Onboarding, technical onboarding, how they can support their customers,
00:44:33.356 --> 00:44:36.196
but more importantly, sales enablement.
00:44:36.376 --> 00:44:42.056
Again, to be able to position our product for the right use case.
00:44:42.236 --> 00:44:48.996
There's a lot of learning in the AI space, in the event, so we need to be very
00:44:48.996 --> 00:44:54.236
close in communication with them to really make sure they're fully on board.
00:44:54.236 --> 00:45:02.716
I couldn't agree more with your advice around service being crucial to having
00:45:02.716 --> 00:45:05.116
a successful business within this space.
00:45:05.356 --> 00:45:11.136
I've said for nearly a decade now that for me, SaaS in the event space should
00:45:11.136 --> 00:45:15.396
almost mean software and the service, not as a service.
00:45:15.616 --> 00:45:18.736
And I see it time and time again, it generally
00:45:18.736 --> 00:45:21.916
is the most successful companies that
00:45:21.916 --> 00:45:25.856
have that customer service mindset first and foremost that's
00:45:25.856 --> 00:45:28.656
what companies are generally actually quite happily to
00:45:28.656 --> 00:45:31.596
pay a premium for as well the technology
00:45:31.596 --> 00:45:34.436
comes as part of that but it's the knowledge and the skill
00:45:34.436 --> 00:45:37.476
set and the people and the responsiveness and things
00:45:37.476 --> 00:45:41.956
like that that really do cement relate long-term relationships with these organizations
00:45:41.956 --> 00:45:46.756
and having people on site makes them feel comfortable that they're in those
00:45:46.756 --> 00:45:50.376
moments that there is something that doesn't go quite right there's somebody
00:45:50.376 --> 00:45:54.676
to turn to and at least be there to try and support and resolve those kinds of things.
00:45:55.723 --> 00:45:59.303
It's a really interesting time for me at the moment because,
00:45:59.603 --> 00:46:05.603
as I said earlier, there's so many new companies coming into the event space
00:46:05.603 --> 00:46:13.363
with, in some cases, really niche tools to help potential problems or challenges and things like that.
00:46:13.683 --> 00:46:20.563
But with very small teams, obviously they're brand new, but also a slightly
00:46:20.563 --> 00:46:24.543
different mindset that it can all be SaaS based and things like that.
00:46:24.543 --> 00:46:26.363
And maybe it will change over time.
00:46:26.543 --> 00:46:30.603
Maybe those tools and platforms will succeed on that basis, but very,
00:46:30.603 --> 00:46:37.763
very, very relationship-based here, I think, in the event space overall, sorry to say.
00:46:39.163 --> 00:46:42.623
You run a globally distributed team.
00:46:43.363 --> 00:46:47.143
I think that's a really interesting thing. You've obviously done it for a long
00:46:47.143 --> 00:46:50.703
time and I see more and more companies going this route now,
00:46:50.943 --> 00:46:54.303
again, because of technology being in place. So you don't necessarily need an
00:46:54.303 --> 00:46:57.063
entire team in one place and things like that.
00:46:57.523 --> 00:47:03.783
But on two sides, what challenges does that create and what opportunities does that create as well?
00:47:04.483 --> 00:47:10.763
Yeah, one thing you said prior to this is about the number of companies coming
00:47:10.763 --> 00:47:15.343
to new companies in the event tech or event space.
00:47:15.343 --> 00:47:24.763
So my view about event, especially in-person event, is I'm very bullish about
00:47:24.763 --> 00:47:26.923
the growth potential in this space.
00:47:28.103 --> 00:47:35.563
We tend to be more and more isolated professionally and personally,
00:47:35.763 --> 00:47:37.323
you know, because of this.
00:47:39.003 --> 00:47:41.403
And getting people together,
00:47:42.535 --> 00:47:44.735
is just a fantastic experience.
00:47:46.835 --> 00:47:50.235
That leads to your question about remote team, right?
00:47:50.495 --> 00:47:55.415
When you talk about remote team, so we were remote before pandemic.
00:47:55.835 --> 00:47:58.475
We started the company as a remote company.
00:47:59.035 --> 00:48:05.575
And the idea was be close to customers.
00:48:05.795 --> 00:48:13.875
So we have team members in Asia, in Europe, in America. when it comes to client-facing team.
00:48:14.775 --> 00:48:21.115
And then we have also that local service and event piece that they're delivering
00:48:21.115 --> 00:48:23.495
the experience, the onboarding.
00:48:24.935 --> 00:48:32.035
The opportunity is definitely being able to cover all different time zones,
00:48:33.015 --> 00:48:40.795
have the perspective, customer's perspective, when it comes to all the nuance of business practices.
00:48:42.975 --> 00:48:48.315
Languages rules and regulations definitely i
00:48:48.315 --> 00:48:51.835
learned from my french employees that hey
00:48:51.835 --> 00:48:59.795
you don't usually ask are you available at noon or 12 30 p.m right that's usually
00:48:59.795 --> 00:49:05.315
when the lunch break most people they take that lunch you ask for 2 p.m or 11
00:49:05.315 --> 00:49:10.135
a.m right is are you available at this time Just simple, basic stuff, right?
00:49:11.255 --> 00:49:17.975
And then the other advantage is just having different people with different perspective.
00:49:19.995 --> 00:49:24.335
The challenge is time zone, right?
00:49:24.775 --> 00:49:30.895
When you start your day, when you end the day, there is always activity,
00:49:32.677 --> 00:49:35.637
there are activities that they require your attention or could
00:49:35.637 --> 00:49:40.337
require your attention or you can get yourself in
00:49:40.337 --> 00:49:43.977
the middle of it so being disciplined from like
00:49:43.977 --> 00:49:50.957
the founder's perspective from a management perspective to to to just have a
00:49:50.957 --> 00:49:57.377
proactive kind of approach of how you manage your schedule but also kind of
00:49:57.377 --> 00:50:02.797
a try not to send like slack messages over the weekend or emails because, you know,
00:50:02.877 --> 00:50:08.157
just give everybody a bit of a time to re-energize over the weekend.
00:50:08.337 --> 00:50:14.517
But when I think the most challenging part for us as a remote team is.
00:50:14.977 --> 00:50:23.497
Well, there are a couple of people that I've been working with at Kudo for the last seven,
00:50:23.637 --> 00:50:26.597
eight years, and I have not met them
00:50:26.597 --> 00:50:31.497
in person yet okay however if
00:50:31.497 --> 00:50:34.637
you ask them prior to compared to
00:50:34.637 --> 00:50:40.577
the prior job experience who they went to the office they felt they feel closer
00:50:40.577 --> 00:50:46.017
to their teams than the one that going to the office every day so it's really
00:50:46.017 --> 00:50:52.077
about the culture right we have a bi-weekly town hall meetings. We get together.
00:50:52.357 --> 00:50:59.317
This Friday we have end of the year, what do you call it, a treasure hunt game
00:50:59.317 --> 00:51:02.537
on the call and a bit of a celebration.
00:51:02.857 --> 00:51:09.637
So we constantly try to communicate more, keeping everybody up to speed about priorities.
00:51:09.817 --> 00:51:14.477
And then we create different pods, EMEA pod, APAC pod, America pod.
00:51:14.657 --> 00:51:20.437
So we try to have our own little kind of a community even in the same region as well. Thank you.
00:51:21.191 --> 00:51:24.751
I will have to heed your own advice there. Maybe we can have a chat afterwards
00:51:24.751 --> 00:51:32.871
because since moving to the Middle East myself, I've noticed my day extending.
00:51:33.211 --> 00:51:37.651
In the lead up to my event, it was extended probably from 6 a.m.
00:51:37.771 --> 00:51:41.031
Till 10 p.m. at night for some days for two weeks.
00:51:41.211 --> 00:51:45.231
So I'll ask for your advice after the podcast on that. I get a good ice pack.
00:51:45.511 --> 00:51:48.291
That's what I used this morning before coming to the podcast.
00:51:48.571 --> 00:51:55.111
I started at 5 a.m. And so I think it's probably the challenge there as well
00:51:55.111 --> 00:52:00.351
is, and listen, from time to times, do I enjoy every aspect of my job or my business?
00:52:00.531 --> 00:52:04.051
Absolutely not. I'm real about it. Actually, I bought fun 99% of the time.
00:52:04.251 --> 00:52:10.431
I genuinely love what I do. It doesn't feel like work. This does not feel like work to me.
00:52:10.651 --> 00:52:14.871
This feels like I'm actually relaxing and having a good time and learning some
00:52:14.871 --> 00:52:17.191
really interesting things from really interesting people.
00:52:17.191 --> 00:52:20.531
But i think you know that discipline
00:52:20.531 --> 00:52:23.411
like you say of knowing when to just it doesn't matter
00:52:23.411 --> 00:52:26.331
if there's a slack message or an email it doesn't need
00:52:26.331 --> 00:52:29.431
an immediate response or things because as founders
00:52:29.431 --> 00:52:34.431
your brains can start to start to spiral and things like that kind of yeah it's
00:52:34.431 --> 00:52:43.551
it's really a balance so i don't see work personal family there is a clear cut
00:52:43.551 --> 00:52:47.351
in my own experience between the three,
00:52:47.611 --> 00:52:49.771
it's about balancing them, right?
00:52:49.931 --> 00:52:57.471
While you are sitting at a dinner table, definitely I have a note device on a dinner table.
00:52:58.211 --> 00:53:03.191
I have a note device taking to my bed and at the end of the night or start my
00:53:03.191 --> 00:53:09.771
day with looking at Slack messages and emails at the same time when I'm at work.
00:53:09.911 --> 00:53:15.251
So it's kind of like giving the flexibility to be present in any of these three
00:53:15.251 --> 00:53:19.671
areas of our lives while we're on it versus having.
00:53:21.380 --> 00:53:24.480
Nine to five, I'm going to do this, five to seven, I'm going to do this.
00:53:24.580 --> 00:53:28.940
But having the flexibility to go hit the gym at 11am because,
00:53:29.200 --> 00:53:32.820
yeah, you need it at that time. And that's the best time to do it.
00:53:33.280 --> 00:53:35.680
So definitely, I'm going to go for a swim this afternoon.
00:53:36.340 --> 00:53:42.060
And I think just lastly, on the opportunities and challenges of a distributed
00:53:42.060 --> 00:53:45.820
team, I think what I took away from you is communication really is key, right?
00:53:45.900 --> 00:53:48.920
Being available as a founder to have time with
00:53:48.920 --> 00:53:51.980
your team whether maybe that's on a one-to-one basis or
00:53:51.980 --> 00:53:57.220
in a group setting or things like that you know slight messages are fine and
00:53:57.220 --> 00:54:03.580
emails are fine but having time to even conversate over zoom or hangouts or
00:54:03.580 --> 00:54:07.060
teams or whatever I think it's that's really clearly important it's important
00:54:07.060 --> 00:54:11.620
for us as our business that we have that regular communication exactly Exactly. Exactly.
00:54:12.380 --> 00:54:17.040
My final question then for you, Farad, is a little bit of looking ahead.
00:54:17.220 --> 00:54:20.860
And I am asking you to stare into a crystal ball here.
00:54:21.060 --> 00:54:27.380
But what's your thoughts on where event tech might be heading over the near future?
00:54:28.680 --> 00:54:31.840
So I think it's just
00:54:31.840 --> 00:54:34.600
the expectation of the
00:54:34.600 --> 00:54:38.960
experience during an in-person
00:54:38.960 --> 00:54:43.340
event is just gonna go up
00:54:43.340 --> 00:54:53.160
and up and whatever technology we bring in whatever service enabled technology
00:54:53.160 --> 00:54:59.240
we're bringing it should focus on high quality experience,
00:54:59.960 --> 00:55:05.460
highly engaged experience for attendees.
00:55:07.787 --> 00:55:18.347
When it comes to how we shifted post-pandemic to be more intentional about doing
00:55:18.347 --> 00:55:21.687
maybe less number of events, but higher quality,
00:55:22.007 --> 00:55:24.487
maybe less number of people,
00:55:24.847 --> 00:55:26.747
but better content.
00:55:26.807 --> 00:55:33.027
I think this trend, in my opinion, is going to continue, especially speaking
00:55:33.027 --> 00:55:36.287
with global enterprises,
00:55:36.907 --> 00:55:45.767
they are definitely cutting budget on their events, not necessarily on the quality
00:55:45.767 --> 00:55:48.567
of the events, a number of events that they're doing.
00:55:48.767 --> 00:55:50.887
They want to do more with less, right?
00:55:52.834 --> 00:55:56.274
And a side conversation I had with somebody who was just saying,
00:55:56.374 --> 00:56:01.074
hey, we're going to cut down on number of languages we're going to provide for
00:56:01.074 --> 00:56:05.354
this event because they just cut my budget.
00:56:05.694 --> 00:56:10.774
And I said, well, how many people are you bringing in?
00:56:10.974 --> 00:56:19.014
And this is, you know, the top tech companies, one of the top tech companies, US companies.
00:56:19.014 --> 00:56:26.714
I said, well, we don't have a budget cost on catering, but on the technology.
00:56:26.934 --> 00:56:33.714
I said, well, do you prefer to bring people that they cannot follow the content,
00:56:33.714 --> 00:56:37.974
but still offering them filet mignon for dinner?
00:56:38.234 --> 00:56:42.354
And he said, it's not my decision, but that's the plan.
00:56:42.354 --> 00:56:47.434
So if the corporation's
00:56:47.434 --> 00:56:50.974
kind of objectives are not aligned
00:56:50.974 --> 00:56:54.794
the event organizer with overall
00:56:54.794 --> 00:56:57.994
the engagement and content there's not much technology
00:56:57.994 --> 00:57:01.174
can do for them right having said
00:57:01.174 --> 00:57:04.674
that I think when you bring people content is
00:57:04.674 --> 00:57:07.694
the key engagement of the attendees
00:57:07.694 --> 00:57:10.774
is the key and making sure everybody is
00:57:10.774 --> 00:57:14.634
fully engaged understood is
00:57:14.634 --> 00:57:17.774
important so that's what we believe and we're
00:57:17.774 --> 00:57:21.474
betting on for years to come that events
00:57:21.474 --> 00:57:27.334
should be multilingual accessible live captioning available in different languages
00:57:27.334 --> 00:57:34.514
otherwise you're bringing people for a very short experience and it's all about
00:57:34.514 --> 00:57:38.254
dine and wine which is important but.
00:57:39.331 --> 00:57:44.111
You're missing the main key point, which is content and the program and the
00:57:44.111 --> 00:57:46.931
education part of that event.
00:57:47.131 --> 00:57:50.191
I don't know if I... I fully agree with you.
00:57:50.311 --> 00:57:58.091
I think dismissing accessibility and making your audience have a high quality
00:57:58.091 --> 00:58:06.211
and engaging experience to serve them slightly better steak is actually very dangerous.
00:58:06.211 --> 00:58:10.011
Because what that opens up is an opportunity for competitors to approach things
00:58:10.011 --> 00:58:17.571
differently and attract those people or attendees that have been left out of
00:58:17.571 --> 00:58:21.831
a comfortable and accessible experience to come and get that education and content somewhere else.
00:58:22.051 --> 00:58:25.011
For me, and I've said this for a long time,
00:58:25.371 --> 00:58:28.311
things like closed captioning and stuff like that really should be non-negotiable
00:58:28.311 --> 00:58:33.291
on events because everybody has different needs and different ways of accessing
00:58:33.291 --> 00:58:37.671
content and being able to whether that's on a on a third screen or on their
00:58:37.671 --> 00:58:38.891
own device and things like that.
00:58:39.671 --> 00:58:42.591
It kind of seems to me the same as like
00:58:42.591 --> 00:58:45.371
you should come just expected like the
00:58:45.371 --> 00:58:50.131
lights being switched on like people need to see but it does seem that unfortunately
00:58:50.131 --> 00:58:55.131
in the economic world that we live in still to some degree accessibility is
00:58:55.131 --> 00:59:04.291
a an option out of the budget which is unfortunate I think I want to challenge every program manager,
00:59:04.871 --> 00:59:11.771
content creator for these events, global events, to challenge them to start
00:59:11.771 --> 00:59:19.271
looking for speakers who are going to present in their own language than English.
00:59:19.271 --> 00:59:27.331
You're gonna find much larger pool of very interesting and unique perspectives,
00:59:27.671 --> 00:59:29.211
subject matter experts.
00:59:30.716 --> 00:59:34.776
And the technology is there to support you at a fraction of a cost.
00:59:36.156 --> 00:59:42.796
And then you see, wow, not necessarily those that are today are your pretty
00:59:42.796 --> 00:59:50.476
much lineup for speakers are necessarily the best options.
00:59:50.576 --> 00:59:56.516
You have a much wider access and you have the technology to support that.
00:59:56.976 --> 00:59:59.856
Okay, awesome. One very final question.
01:00:00.716 --> 01:00:02.776
And I'm going to say you don't necessarily need to have an opinion on this,
01:00:02.876 --> 01:00:07.436
but some recent news that kind of hit the waves in the event space in general,
01:00:07.456 --> 01:00:12.816
and especially on the event tech side, was Sievent's acquisition of Goldcast.
01:00:13.296 --> 01:00:16.996
Do you have an opinion on that as a founder? Do you think it signals anything?
01:00:17.356 --> 01:00:21.376
Or do you think it's just part and parcel of the evolution of event technology
01:00:21.376 --> 01:00:25.456
and companies and the way that VC money and private equity and things like that work?
01:00:25.656 --> 01:00:29.376
Yeah, no, no, it's actually quite an exciting time.
01:00:29.376 --> 01:00:32.276
I think it's a very strategic move by Sivan to
01:00:32.276 --> 01:00:35.376
really turn the company quite in
01:00:35.376 --> 01:00:40.756
a big platform so it's not just about the data you want to create the whole
01:00:40.756 --> 01:00:47.636
experience for attendees as well and as I know it was a very competitive process
01:00:47.636 --> 01:00:54.296
for Sivan to get that success for acquisition and when you think about like there are.
01:00:55.238 --> 01:01:00.758
Less than a handful of companies that now you have the entire experience of
01:01:00.758 --> 01:01:07.538
technology, data, as well as an on-site and online experience.
01:01:07.758 --> 01:01:12.538
And Sivan, with this acquisition, definitely continue to lead in this space.
01:01:12.738 --> 01:01:16.698
Yeah, I agree. I think, you know, there's obviously been lots of conversation
01:01:16.698 --> 01:01:19.318
about what it means and is it positive, is it negative?
01:01:19.478 --> 01:01:22.198
But I think for me personally I think we should
01:01:22.198 --> 01:01:26.098
see it as positive because while ever Cvent as
01:01:26.098 --> 01:01:29.198
arguably one of the global leaders in the space is making
01:01:29.198 --> 01:01:31.938
these investments and sees the opportunity and the
01:01:31.938 --> 01:01:34.558
growth and things like that I think as an industry we should see that as a
01:01:34.558 --> 01:01:37.658
positive signal I would start to get worried if Cvent doesn't
01:01:37.658 --> 01:01:40.358
make an acquisition for 12 months or more I think
01:01:40.358 --> 01:01:43.258
that obviously signals that there's either not
01:01:43.258 --> 01:01:46.338
the opportunity in the market or there's not the right companies to bring
01:01:46.338 --> 01:01:50.258
into that so I think it's positive myself and I
01:01:50.258 --> 01:01:53.278
think people wanting to topple Cvent
01:01:53.278 --> 01:01:56.618
off the mantle I don't really get the the the focus
01:01:56.618 --> 01:01:59.958
on that or the obsession with that personally but I think it's because I think
01:01:59.958 --> 01:02:03.958
there's enough space in the market for everybody to succeed in the space so
01:02:03.958 --> 01:02:08.538
Vada thank you very much for taking the time once again to spend time with me
01:02:08.538 --> 01:02:12.838
and talk a little bit about your career journey Kudo and the other businesses
01:02:12.838 --> 01:02:16.158
that you've been able to found and provide to the events industry.
01:02:16.738 --> 01:02:19.838
For anybody out there that wants to go and learn more about yourself or Kudo
01:02:19.838 --> 01:02:23.998
or any other businesses, where's the best place to go? LinkedIn is the best place.
01:02:24.238 --> 01:02:27.598
Send me a message. I'm happy to get on the call. Any questions.
01:02:28.378 --> 01:02:33.858
Any challenges, I tend to make myself available if somebody needs, if I can be any help.