What's Up with Tech? cover art

What's Up with Tech?

What's Up with Tech?

By: Evan Kirstel
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Tech Transformation with Evan Kirstel: A podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry, and how businesses can leverage them for growth, diving into the world of B2B, discussing strategies, trends, and sharing insights from industry leaders!

With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Cloud, Telecom, 5G and more!


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Episodes
  • From Chat-With-PDF To Enterprise Learning Transformation
    Feb 17 2026

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com

    What if your best trainer is the person who’s retiring next month—and an AI that turns their brain dump into accurate, engaging lessons overnight? We unpack how a scrappy chat-with-PDF experiment grew into an enterprise-grade course creation engine that slashes time, cost, and confusion while boosting trust and adoption.

    Ro shares the early product choices that mattered: attacking hallucinations head-on, grounding content in source material, and designing guided workflows that mirror real instructional design standards. We dive into the moment enterprise demand hit—when a major manufacturer needed to capture critical know-how from a retiring workforce—and how AI made it possible to transform raw voice notes and messy documents into structured training with assessments, examples, and clear outcomes. The conversation widens beyond linear courses to the realities of learning at work: microlearning, deep search across knowledge bases, and just-in-time guidance that supports real performance.

    Then comes the power move—joining LearnUpon. By pairing Courso’s AI-driven content generation with LearnUpon’s LMS strengths in skills mapping, role-based delivery, and gap analysis, creation finally meets distribution. Think on-the-fly lessons triggered by skill needs, rapid updates that keep content fresh, and spaced repetition that helps learners remember what matters. Ro’s philosophy grounds it all: AI should be invisible, human-guided, and relentlessly practical. It’s not a thinker; it’s a multiplier for experts, a backstage crew that helps knowledge scale beyond silos and survive turnover.

    If you care about L&D strategy, instructional design, LMS integration, knowledge capture, and personalization that actually helps people learn faster, this story-rich deep dive brings clarity and a real blueprint for action. Subscribe, share with your learning team, and leave a review with one course you’d automate first—we’d love to feature your ideas next.

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    More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

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    19 mins
  • How Zynga Turns Free-To-Play Into Brand Value
    Feb 17 2026

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com

    Think gamers are just kids with consoles? We pull back the curtain with Zynga to show how mobile gaming has become mass-market entertainment—and a must-buy channel for brands. From FarmVille roots to a powerhouse inside Take-Two Interactive, Zynga sits where free-to-play design, rewarded ads, and deep engagement meet real business outcomes.

    We start with the core shift: only a small fraction of players pay, so advertising powers the experience for everyone else. That’s where rewarded ads shine. When players choose to watch a spot to earn an extra life or perk, brands become part of the game’s momentum instead of an interruption. It’s native, opt-in, and it builds goodwill that lasts longer than a passing impression. We also bust stereotypes about who plays. Mobile skews female, with millennial and Gen X women—often the chief decision-makers at home and at work—driving a massive share of purchasing. If you care about the female economy, you care about mobile gaming.

    Gabriella walks through how Zynga maps brand KPIs to the right titles across 150 games, from word and match-three to sports and invest-and-express. We talk creative formats that invite two-way interaction, why gaming is the perfect companion to TV on the couch, and how mid-funnel metrics—preference, favorability, and consideration—quietly win the day. Categories seeing standout results include retail, CPG, entertainment, insurance, pharma, and QSR, all benefiting from time spent that ranks among the highest in mobile.

    Looking forward, we hit the measurement problem and the fix on the horizon. Traditional media mix models undercount gaming, but AI-driven MMM promises a clearer read across retail media, CTV, social, creator, audio, and mobile apps. Add new devices, foldables, and AR into the mix and the canvas for brand experiences only gets bigger. If you’re planning budgets, building creative, or just curious how games became the heartbeat of digital attention, this conversation is a field guide to what works now and what’s next.

    If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a teammate, and leave a quick review—what part of the gaming-media shift surprised you most?

    Support the show

    More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

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    20 mins
  • Switzerland’s Edge In Global Innovation
    Feb 12 2026

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com

    We sit down with Swiss Tech campaign manager to crack open the machine. This isn't luck—it's a surgical combination of world-class universities, patient capital, and a public-private alliance that treats every spinout like a potential Rolex.

    From AI and robotics to medtech, biotech, and precision manufacturing, Switzerland weaponizes its obsession with quality. The ecosystem doesn't just fund research; it drags it kicking and screaming into the market, then flies it around the world to prove it works.

    **Enter the Swiss Tech Pavilion: startup diplomacy on steroids.**

    CES. VivaTech. MWC Barcelona. SusHi Tech Tokyo. Web Summit Vancouver. These aren't just booths—they're engineered collision zones where founders lock down investor meetings, corporate partnerships, and media hits in seventy-two hours. Patricia walks us through the formula: Swissnex handles the intel, Switzerland Global Enterprise opens corporate doors, and Innosuisse bankrolls the ambition. The right platform. The right rooms. The right moment.

    Then there's the Global Deep Tech Battle—a gladiator arena for founders. International teams compete in front of investors and journalists who double as judges. It's not about participation trophies. It's about forcing Swiss startups to measure up against global killers and come out sharper.

    **The pipeline starts in the lab.**

    ETH Zurich and EPFL aren't just top-ranked universities—they're idea factories with built-in incubators and accelerators that turn research into revenue. Clinical trials. Industrial pilots. Product-market validation. But Patricia doesn't sugarcoat the gaps: early-stage support is world-class, but late-stage capital for hardware-heavy or regulated plays? That's where things get tight. Stability and quality of life keep teams grinding, but cross-border expansion, corporate venture checks, and Series B+ rounds remain the final boss.

    If you're obsessed with how AI, robotics, and life sciences jump from whiteboards to the real world, this is your blueprint. From the hidden champions supplying Apple and Tesla to the festivals that turn unknown founders into marquee names—this is how Switzerland plays the long game and wins.

    Support the show

    More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

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    19 mins
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