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BoldIQ adds new talent to the team – welcome Elias Andersson

BoldIQ welcomed our newest team member and software engineer – Elias Andersson.

Elias joins us with over 15 years of software development experience building and releasing several commercial products. He has experience with large scale projects, designing solutions to complex problems, in both small and large teams.

Prior to BoldIQ, Elias worked at Intentional Software where he worked on back and front ends of a productivity app based on David Allen’s Getting Things Done® system; built a platform and development environment for creating domain specific languages, including a custom structured editor; and created domain specific language examples such as for controlling Lego Mindstorms Robots. Before Intentional, Elias worked at IBM, Rational Software, and Objectory in various software positions.

Elias earned his MSc in Computer Science from Uppsala University in Sweden.

BoldIQ’s Mike Christensen in GeekWire’s 16 tips and tricks for managing everyday work and life

What’s your best tip or trick for managing everyday work and life? It’s one of our favorite questions to ask as part of our regular Geek of the Week feature.

Periodically, we collect all of those tips and tricks in one concentrated dose of helpful advice. With New Year’s resolutions prompting many of us to take a fresh look our daily habits, it’s a perfect time to do it again.

Continue reading for insights from some of the Pacific Northwest’s top geeks, and click on any person’s name to read their full Geek of the Week profile.

BJ Lackland, CEO of LighterCapital: “Arriving at work early, before everyone else, and after my kids are asleep is when I can take care of my direct work.”

Yarelly Gomez, Software Engineering Student at the University of Washington: “Balance is key, find what makes you happy and make sure to give yourself time to do that no matter how hectic your schedule may be.”

Joshua Blake, Co-founder of Orbbec: “Sleep. Anytime I’m stuck on a problem, I’m always tempted to stay up late until I solve it, but that never works if it requires any amount of creativity. If I put it aside and sleep on it, my subconscious will work on it while my consciousness is defragging itself. More often than not, I’ll wake up with the solution.”

Vikram Jandhyala, Innovation Ambassador at the University of Washington: “Focus. When it’s time to do X, do X. When it’s not, don’t. Don’t multitask, it’s not effective. If you can’t focus, that’s OK. Don’t penalize yourself for it. Know when you can focus, when you are in a ‘scanning’ mode, and when you are able to think really innovative thoughts. All three times are valuable. A good calendar system and good access to the material you need are also critical.”

Bryce Blum, eSports lawyer, Director of eSports and in-house counsel for Unikrn: Work out in the morning. Getting exercise out of the way will give you more energy and it frees up evenings for fun — or more work. Plus it makes you feel like you’ve started off the day on a productive foot.

Mina Yoo, Founder of Lulabop LLC: “Try not dwell on the negative. We all get bad news or have negative interactions on occasion related to work and life, and it is easy to get into a negative spiral that can be paralyzing. I try to make mental notes to prevent these things from happening again (if they are in my control) and move on.”

Mike Christensen, Senior Software Engineer at BoldIQ: “Find hobbies that balance out the technical aspects of your job. My love of hiking helps prevent my life from becoming too one sided. Getting in touch with nature allows me to see the earth as a whole.”

Brian Fioca, serial entrepreneur, Partner at Madrona Venture Labs: “RescueTime! I have three alerts set: one for when I’m too distracted, one for when I’ve hit my daily work goal, and one to tell me to stop working so I don’t burn out.”

Forest Key, CEO and co-founder of Pixvana, former CEO of Buuteeq: “Make sure you are as passionate about your work as you are about your family/personal time. If it is a natural equilibrium, then it is effortless and you can focus on the work and play and not on the challenge of having one win over the other.”

Akash Badshah, Product Architect for Socedo: “Keep work out of the bedroom! By this I mean to find a dedicated time or space and prioritize it over work. For me, this was taking the time to read the news and eat breakfast in the morning before jumping online or responding to emails. I used to start working from bed as soon as daylight hit my face, and I burned out pretty quickly because I was essentially always-on. By forcing myself to wait before getting involved I was able to regain some mental sanity, and honestly become more productive because I spent half as much time worrying. Of course, there are still fire-alarms that need to take precedence, but those are few and far between.”

S. “Soma” Somasegar, Partner at Madrona Venture Group, former Microsoft exec: “Remember that you’re in a marathon. Only you know how best to pace yourself for the long haul. Work and life are both integral parts of what each of us need to do and focus on. Having the right balance is important and it varies from individual to individual. Each person needs to understand what it means to them, personally, and then put a plan in place to make that their reality.”

Brett Greene, co-founder of New Tech Seattle: “#1 – have a supportive spouse. #2 – have a hot tub to de-stress in and/or exercise regularly. Remember that family and friends come first. This is what all the work is for. Outside of that, find tools to help with productivity. Trello and Nimble have been amazing for me for productivity.”

Rahul Singh, Founder and CEO at Distelli Inc.: “Be 100 percent focused on what you’re doing. Whether you’re in a meeting, writing code or at home with family, pouring all of your focus to your present task is how you get stuff done and be successful. When you have that consistency, you can tackle any task.”

Austin Dale Wheat, Senior Manager, OpenMarket: “Start the day with a list of things that you will not do for the day. This really helps to reduce distractions, so you can focus on only the most important things.”

Joe Beda, Entrepreneur in Residence at Accel Partners, Google vet: “It is all about prioritization. Early on in my career I realized that there wasn’t enough time for everything. You have to get the most important stuff done first (work or life) and let the rest land where it lands. Beyond that, I’ve found it useful to record where you are spending your time. Taking a dispassionate look can really help you find where you are spending time on unimportant things.”

Priya Cloutier, Founder and Patent Attorney at Cloutier Global Intellectual Property: “I’ve been doing this since my older son was born — 20 years ago. Time for yourself has to happen before anyone else wakes up, otherwise life gets in the way. I wake up at 4 a.m. to pursue my passion — I’m a marathoner turning triathlete. Work at work, and go home to have dinner with the kids. Work starts again when they go to bed.”

Click to read it on GeekWire

BoldIQ Team BoldIQ’s Mike Christensen in GeekWire’s Most Important Tech of 2015

2015 was the year of the wearables, drones, 3D printing, virtual reality and more — but amid all this innovation, how do you distinguish fad from future staple? To put the question another way: What was the most important technology of 2015?

We asked CEOs, engineers, and innovators across the Pacific Northwest that question as part of our regular Geek of the Week feature.  Continue reading to find out why they picked everything from brain organoids to good old-fashioned smartphones, and click on any name to read each person’s full Geek of the Week profile.

BJ Lackland, CEO of LighterCapital: “Lots of financial technology. Of course I’m biased here, since I work at a fintech company. Overall, increasing access to capital on reasonable terms enables lots more people to have opportunities and improve their lives.”

Forest Key, CEO and co-founder of Pixvana, former CEO of Buuteeq: “Ubiquitous video and still photography via cell phones.”

Brian Fioca, serial entrepreneur, Partner at Madrona Venture Labs: “Apple Watch. Just kidding, but I love mine anyway.”

Akash Badshah, Product Architect for Socedo: “Wearables.”

S. “Soma” Somasegar, Partner at Madrona Venture Group, former Microsoft exec: “Machine Learning.”

Priya Cloutier, Founder and Patent Attorney at Cloutier Global Intellectual Property: “Nuclear Power.”

Joe Beda, Entrepreneur in Residence at Accel Partners, Google vet: “Hard to pick one thing. Is this the year of the drone?”

Austin Dale Wheat, Senior Manager, OpenMarket: “Hands down, 3D-printing.”

Rahul Singh, Founder and CEO at Distelli Inc. “Aerial drones.”

Yarelly Gomez, Software Engineering Student at the University of Washington: “3D Printing, for sure.”

Vikram Jandhyala, Innovation Ambassador at the University of Washington: “Drones.”

Brett Greene, co-founder of New Tech Seattle: “Driverless cars.”

Mike Christensen, Senior Software Engineer at BoldIQ: “The Cloud. We’re now finally seeing devices as a commodity, and real innovation happening on the back end.”

Mina Yoo, Founder of Lulabop LLC: “Micro Drone 3.0: Flight in the palm of your hand.”

Kimberly Amundson, Program Officer at PATH: “Speech-jammer app — not really, but it’s quite entertaining.”

Sharon Magliano Feliciano, Founder of ParentingGeekly.com: “Wearables.”

Darren Hardman, COO of Avanade: “Skype for Business. I use it every day to connect and collaborate. Can you remember life without such a collaboration and communication tool?”

Ben Gifford, UX designer at Array Health: “Not wearables. I’d say battery technology: getting smaller, more energy dense. Eventually, this will enable us to do more than we can currently imagine. It would be appropriate to tack graphene on to this discussion as well.”

Carole Tomko, General Manager of Vulcan Productions: “3D imaging enabling all the amazing work being done in the medical field.”

Rahul Bhardwaj, Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Student at Purdue University: “3D printers”

Kassy Coan, Program Manager at Microsoft Bing: “One of the most impressive advancements I’ve noticed recently is the increasing affordability of 3D printers. As they become more affordable, 3D printers are showing us the potential impact of improving on existing technologies. The product output quality is improving and the cost of development is dropping, making them more widely accessible than ever. The reason this price drop is so important is because it widens the audience who have access to this creative medium and puts the creation of technology into more hands.”

Sriharshita Musunuri, High School Student, Thermoelectrics Innovator: “Brain Organoids.”

Jonathon Loucks, Lead Game Designer of Loot & Legends: “Smartphones.”

Colin Walker, Senior Technical Marketing Engineer for ExtraHop: “Yet to be seen, but if they can finish up 5G and get it to the masses, I’d say it’d be a game-changer. Other than that, the IoT movement is making a big push.”

Nick Berry, Data Scientist at Facebook: “There are a few, but I think they are stealth and it will take a few years to appreciate the fruits of their labors. Looking back in a couple of years I hope we’ll see the immense value that technologies like: 3D printing, DIY boards like Raspberry Pi/Arduino, and incredibly cheap cloud computing options have provided. These tools are the Petri dishes for the engineers of our future. The people who are playing with these technologies today will be next decades’ entrepreneurs. It’s investing in the future.”

Erez Benari, Sr. Service Engineer, Identity and Access Management (IAM) at Microsoft: “VR Sets.”

Lesley Baker, Founder of For Jack and Jill: “3D printing. I think there are a lot of exciting applications that are going to continue to happen, evolve in this space.”

Click to see the GeekWire story

BoldIQ Team Ride-Sharing Drivers can Unionize – Surprise?

In case you haven’t heard yet – Seattle is the first U.S. city to give Uber, and other contract drivers the power to unionize. The Seattle City Council voted 8-0 Monday afternoon to enact Councilmember Mike O’Brien’s ordinance giving taxi, for-hire and Uber drivers the ability to unionize.

Surprise surprise…how long did we think that this so called new-age sharing economy, growing and profiting on the backs of ‘contractors’ would last? Seattle may be leading the way in this specific ruling, but many cities in the U.S. and across the globe have had issues with ride-share companies and it is no surprise.

Ride-sharing is when a company acts as a so called broker, collecting demand for transportation and then providing registered drivers with the option to pick up a person or package and drive them to the required destination. The company does not actually schedule the ride, as in they don’t pick which driver should do that job and then assign them to the job. Rather they ‘post’ the job and the first driver that wants it, gets it. Because of this model, there is inherently significant waste which leads to congestion, fuel burn and emissions that aren’t required. Why?

If I as the company, don’t control my resources (as in drivers with their cars), rather I just propose jobs to them, then in order for me to ensure I have the ability to provide quick pick up for my customers, I must have multiple empty cars driving around waiting for the ‘app to ring’. The resulting challenge is twofold – more cars burning fuel and rubber on already packed roads; and a much larger pool of drivers roaming the streets hoping to make some money on a much smaller pool of demand – a pool of demand that if handled by an optimized network of vehicles, would require fewer drivers, each actually earning a decent income.

Lets look at a fish bowl – if I only have a set amount of fish food to throw into the bowl each day, then the more fish I add to the bowl, the less each fish will eat on average. What happens in reality is some fish eat fine, while others starve to death.

In the fish bowl of our streets, demand is set. It of course fluctuates, but overall the same number of people are requesting a ride or delivery on any given day. If you have too many drivers trying to make money on that, some drivers do fine, while others…don’t. In the meantime the ride-sharing company makes out phenomenally well since it takes a cut of the revenue without taking the risk of the costs.

Any wonder they want to unionize!?

The challenge is what the response will be to unionizing. Ride sharing companies may choose (or not have a choice) to simply stop doing business in markets that allow it and thus everyone loses; or they can choose to control their resources i.e. actually schedule their drivers, and thus be able to meet demand efficiently. The obvious downside is that less drivers will be needed (unless demand grows) but in turn each driver will make the money they should be making and the ride sharing companies still make their cut too.

And what about the argument that by having less ride sharing cars on the road, the passengers will now have to wait longer for service – thus it is bad for the community? Well, if transport companies continue to behave the way they do today, that is probably a fair argument. But if the taxi companies, and ride sharing companies, start utilizing advanced dynamic optimization software, that enables them to operate truly on-demand, then everyone will benefit.

BoldIQ is On The Map…Literally

BoldIQ is included in Washington State’s robust technology ecosystem. The iconic map has been widely used to convey the richness of our tech industry. It hangs at the MOHAI and in state legislators’ offices. This past November, it was featured in a TEDx talk on innovation ecosystems.

Click images to see full story, large map, and to order a copy of the poster

Our Customer PlaneSense, Delivers Food Drive Cargo by PC-12 Aircraft

PlaneSense, Inc., a fractional aircraft ownership company based in Portsmouth, NH, collected over 7,000 pounds of food for the NH Food Bank. The PlaneSense® team then filled a Pilatus PC-12 with the food, and it was flown to the Manchester Boston Regional Airport today. Manchester, NH Mayor Ted Gatsas, Chairman of the Pease Development Authority, George Bald, and Executive Director of the Pease Development Authority, Dave Mullen, personally greeted the aircraft full of food.

NH Food Bank executives and members of its advisory board were also on hand at Signature Aviation to gather the food for distribution. Mayor Gatsas, and PlaneSense, Inc. President and CEO George Antoniadis (who piloted the plane) helped to load the NH Food Bank vehicle with the non-perishables. The remainder of the food was brought by truck and delivered to the Food Bank.

“The New Hampshire Food Bank works with more than 400 partner agencies throughout the State of New Hampshire, reaching so many families in need,” Antoniadis said. “We are pleased to be able to help for a second year in a row, and I am very proud that our employees and their families contributed substantially to this food drive. We are also delighted that community members and our friends at Pilatus Business Aircraft, the Pease Development Authority, BoldIQ, Constant Aviation, and businesses on Pease Tradeport, including Teledyne and Medtronic Advanced Energy, have given donations to help as well.”

This is the company’s second year flying a PC-12 full of food in support of the NH Food Bank. Last year’s donations totaled around 800 pounds of food, which provided over 600 meals. This year’s donations will provide over 5,800 meals.

“It is my great pleasure to be here with the New Hampshire Food Bank for the second year in a row, to help accept and thank the PlaneSense team for being so giving during the holiday season” Mayor Gatsas said. “Their donations today will give so many Queen City and New Hampshire residents a wonderful meal this holiday season. I am truly appreciative of their dedication to our local and state communities.”

According to Mel Gosselin, the Executive Director of the NH Food Bank, the food will be brought back to the Manchester, NH facility and sorted into categories. It will then be placed into the NH Food Bank’s online ordering system and later dispersed accordingly to help feed over 140,000 NH residents who are food insecure.

“We applaud PlaneSense employees and their families for generously partnering with the NH Food Bank on a food drive for the second year in a row,” said Gosselin. “The holidays and winter months can be a very difficult time for those who are faced with ‘Eat or Heat’ decisions by the limitations of their resources.”

Antoniadis said that while filling an airplane – and in this case, needing “supplement lift” in the form of a truck to carry the excess food donations – was the initial goal, increasing the public’s exposure to the needs of the New Hampshire Food Bank was an equally important result of the holiday food drive.

For more information on fractional shares with the PlaneSense® program, visit PlaneSense, Inc. online at http://www.planesense.com.

About:
PlaneSense, Inc. is a fractional aircraft ownership program based in Portsmouth, NH, that has been in operation since 1995. The PlaneSense® program manages the largest civilian fleet of Pilatus PC-12 aircraft in the world, and has more experience with the PC-12 than any other aircraft management and maintenance team. PlaneSense, Inc. has also placed the largest launch agreement order for six new Pilatus PC-24 jets.

Offering optimal access to many airports, and fractional owner flexibility that suits any flying profile, the PlaneSense program offers compelling value through affordable pricing, world-class service, and a practical, comfortable aircraft.

Click to read the original news

The STRR Act: A Jumpstart to a Connected, Smart Transportation System

The STRR Act (Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform) passed in the House last month, paving the way for funding an overdue upgrade to our country’s vast transportation system. The bill, which focuses on improving infrastructure, reforms, and refocused national priorities, will welcome innovation to make our system safer and improve our quality of life. This bill, if taken advantage of correctly, could and in-fact should, radically change our transportation system as we know it.

Passing the STRR Act is a great step towards implementing smart infrastructure and encouraging new innovations like connected cars and autonomous vehicles, but what it lacks is a specific focus on network efficiency. The same number of driverless cars for example, replacing ‘regular’ cars, will still lead to the same congestion levels.

Extended railroad systems, updated freight and highway projects, and improved surface transportation are crucial to jumpstarting a new smart transportation system, but think how our system could be transformed by connecting all these aspects together with demand, to provide an optimized transportation network that requires less moving parts pun intended). Smart cars might power this new system, but real-time dynamic efficiency is what will enable the system to live up to expectations of less congestion, waste and emissions, while providing better results.

As we move into a future of driverless cars and connected transportation, we need an optimized network layer operating above the smart infrastructure to maximize efficiency. This layer could tell us exactly how many cars we need to have on the road to meet demand while not using additional resources. This would mean less emissions and resources needed to keep up with customer demand.

A focus on efficiency in the planning stages of implementing a smart transportation system is critical. As more and more companies invest in driverless cars, we can expect more cars to hit the streets which means more waste and more traffic.

But, if we have an optimized system in place – if we implement the most efficient network to operate these new innovations – we can expect a better quality of life as we enter this new era of transportation.

The end of Black Friday and Cyber Monday

How operations optimization will change the face of retail as we know it

Read the piece on wired.com

BoldIQ immortalized on U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion memorial park at Joint Base Lewis-McChord

To remember our fallen heroes and pay tribute to the achievements and sacrifices of the men and families of 2nd Ranger Battalion, a memorial park was built in their honor.  Constructed of granite and stone, inscribed with the names of Rangers who died in combat and training, the memorial is landscaped into a reflective setting–a physical reminder of Ranger selfless service befitting those that made the ultimate sacrifice.

BoldIQ is proud to be part of this great heritage and tradition.

BoldIQ CEO shares vision and reality of optimized on-demand operations at Seattle Biz-Tech conference

Roei Ganzarski, president & CEO of BoldIQ shared with the audience of the 3rd annual Seattle Biz-Tech conference, what the convergence of Big Data, Fast Data, Dynamic Operations, and Internet of Things looks like. Ganzarski shared the vision and the reality of how real-time optimization software, like that offered by BoldIQ, is shaping today’s reality into tomorrow’s intelligent future. Home visits by nurses, driverless transportation, deliveries by drone, and repairs to your washing machine, all coordinated and scheduled efficiently by a centralized dynamic optimization system.