The Rise of Digital Humanity

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This is a special episode of</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Tech Leader Talk</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">because this episode officially makes the podcast an international podcast! For the first time, I welcome a guest who lives overseas – Sean G. Muller of New Zealand! Sean, although originally from the United States, currently works what he identifies as his dream job for IBM in New Zealand.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sean's background is in network engineering and network architecture and describes his experience entering the world of technology as having fallen into the role rather than having taken an academic path. Having taken a part-time job at Ericsson Telecommunications National Headquarters in Richardson, Texas (before, of course, moving to New Zealand where he is currently), technology sort of unexpectedly became his career.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sean and I discuss everything from how 9/11 impacted a lot of people (including himself) in the technology industry by leaving them out of work, the importance of culture and effective leadership in a company, how the current COVID-19 pandemic has impacted technology and technology companies, how Sean expects the world of technology to change over the next couple of years and what he worries most about regarding the future of technology, and so much more.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He also shares with us the story of how he worked with the New Zealand police on a really exciting project named Ella. Ella is a digital human who was temporarily employed by the New Zealand police as an experiment to see how people would react to her, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Sean encourages us to search for Ella online to see what she looks like, and he also offers advice to newcomers to the world of technology, stressing the importance of factoring in ongoing and additional costs, not just how much you initially pay for a piece of hard