Month: March 2018

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African Tech Roundup - Andela’s Wambui Kinya unpacks Andela’s gig economy strategy and addresses common misconceptions

Wambui Kinya is the Chief Strategy Officer at Andela-- a startup helping companies overcome tech talent shortages by delivering high performing distributed engineering teams that leverage some of Africa's finest coding talent. Wambui joined Andela after spending over eighteen years working within the professional services space (spanning digital, mobile marketing and technology consulting) in North America, Europe and Africa for companies such as ThoughtWorks (where she notably served as Group Managing Director, Pan-Africa and South America), Praekelt Consulting and IBM Global Business Services. In her current role, Wambui has been tasked with developing partnerships with top tech organizations across the continent and with spearheading Andela's tech leadership recruitment efforts. In this candid chat with Andile Masuku, taped at African Tech Summit Kigali 2018 (https://www.africatechsummit.com/kigali/) she unpacks Andela's distinctive approach to capitalising on the global gig economy trend and addresses some misconceptions that outsiders tend to have about how things work at one of Africa's most-publicised startups.
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Serious Inquiries Only - SIO125: Are We Headed for Another Depression? with Dr. Robert S. McElvaine

A few months back in the midst of the Republican tax reform bill, Dr. Robert S. McElvaine wrote an article for the Washington Post about the parallels between our current situation and the Great Depression. Being a historian of the depression, he might know a thing or two about it. I interviewed him on this and surrounding issues! Leave Thomas a voicemail! (916) 750-4746, remember short and to the point! Support the show at seriouspod.com/support! Follow us on Twitter: @seriouspod Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/seriouspod For comments, email thomas@seriouspod.com  
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Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - When Did Corporations Become People?

On this week’s show, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by UCLA Law Professor Adam Winkler to talk about his new book We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights. Together, they also examine what the constitutionalizing of corporate rights can tell us about the current gun debate.

And Dahlia steps inside the chamber for oral arguments in the hugely significant public sector union case we previewed last show. She is joined by the Solicitor General of Illinois, David Franklin, who argued the case. There were explosive contributions from the justices on the bench, but notable silence from the court’s newest member, Justice Neil M Gorsuch.

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Please let us know what you think of Amicus. Join the discussion of this episode on Facebook. Our email is amicus@slate.com.

Podcast production by Sara Burningham

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Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - When Did Corporations Become People?

On this week’s show, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by UCLA Law Professor Adam Winkler to talk about his new book We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights. Together, they also examine what the constitutionalizing of corporate rights can tell us about the current gun debate.

And Dahlia steps inside the chamber for oral arguments in the hugely significant public sector union case we previewed last show. She is joined by the Solicitor General of Illinois, David Franklin, who argued the case. There were explosive contributions from the justices on the bench, but notable silence from the court’s newest member, Justice Neil M Gorsuch.

Please fill out the Slate podcast survey at slate.com/podcastsurvey

Please let us know what you think of Amicus. Join the discussion of this episode on Facebook. Our email is amicus@slate.com.

Podcast production by Sara Burningham

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The Gist - Rejecting Jared

Well, what do you know? In 2016, Trump tweeted that he wasn’t trying to get a top security clearance for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. A year later, he’s finally right.

On The Gist, what’s so special about an octopus? Slate’s Daniel Engber has a takedown of the many-armed beast of the deep: The research on cephalopod intelligence is flimsy, he says, and the octopus is hardly the first animal to have fascinated us with its methods of escape.

In the Spiel, it’s time to name another Lobstar.

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CrowdScience - Could Bees Take Over From Sniffer Dogs?

Humans have used dogs' excellent sniffing talents ever since our ancestors figured out that canine companions could help them track down their next meal.

But what about other animals? Can they take us beyond the limits of our own senses? That's what CrowdScience listener Beth wants to know, so we obligingly try to sniff out some answers.

After immersing ourselves in the world of insect senses at our local zoo, we visit an insect lab in Germany to find out whether sniffer bees could take over from sniffer dogs. And could ants help us fly the drones of the future? We meet the scientists trying to turn ant vision into computer code, to send robots into places GPS can't reach.

Presenter: Nastaran Tavakoli-Far Producer: Cathy Edwards

(Photo: A bee on a human finger. Credit: Getty Images)