As a major retailer selling everything from party food platters to duvet covers to kids' clothes, UK-based retailer Marks & Spencer has a customer base as diverse as its product offerings. 

And yet, according to enterprise architect Akash Parmar, the company had, for a long time, tried to pigeon-hole customers into three or four interactive voice response (IVR) options any time a call came in.

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t go well.

“The key challenge we were facing was the fact we just didn’t understand. We were getting ten million calls a year and didn’t clearly understand what these calls were about,” he said.

It goes to show that the challenges facing a multi-billion dollar company can be the same ones plaguing a one-person start-up: namely, understanding and then communicating effectively with your target audience.

To solve this challenge, the company created a Natural Language Platform (NLP) l that captured more than …

Unlike your typical tech founder, you’re less likely to find Jason Friesen talking through slides in a corporate board room than traveling between ambulance and fire stations, emergency call centers, and ministries of health in far-flung places.

That’s because he’s the founder and executive director (and former full-time paramedic) behind Trek Medics, a nonprofit that develops pre-hospital and emergency care systems in low- and middle-income regions including Tanzania, the Domincan Republic, and Haiti.

Their mission? Reduce preventable death and disability by improving access to emergency care for at-risk and vulnerable populations through mobile phone technologies. 

Tune into any news channel and it’s clear: even the richest countries and populations in the world struggle to guarantee access to rapid medical response during emergencies, and often hit logistical and technological snags doing so. Just imagine the breadth and scope of challenges facing providers serving at-risk populations in lower-income regions. 

To develop Trek …