Recorded Live In Tallinn Ahead Of The Software Defined Space Conference

What does cybersecurity look like beyond Earth’s atmosphere? That is the question at the heart of this special Conversations From The Showfloor episode, recorded in Tallinn on the eve of the Software Defined Space Conference.

I sat down with Kristiina Omri, Vice President of Special Programs at CybExer Technologies, and Aare Reintam, the company’s COO, to explore how Estonia, in collaboration with European Space Agency, is shaping the future of space cybersecurity through the world’s first Space Cyber Range.

The origin story is unexpected. For Aare, fascination with space began as a child in the Soviet era, eating marmalade from a tube like the kind sent to astronauts in orbit. Decades later, that early spark evolved into a partnership with ESA focused on securing the increasingly software-driven systems that now power life in space.

At the center of our discussion is the Space Cyber Range, a digital testing environment that allows satellites, ground stations, and communication protocols to be stress-tested long before launch. Using digital twins and immersive simulation, CybExer recreates mission control systems so realistically that engineers and operators cannot distinguish training from reality. Under simulated attack conditions, defenders face adversaries who are allowed to push systems to their limits, revealing vulnerabilities that would be too risky or too expensive to test in orbit.

We explore why this matters now. Satellites underpin GPS navigation, air travel, agriculture, banking, climate monitoring, and global communications. Yet many long-life orbital systems were designed decades ago, before today’s threat landscape. As commercial space missions multiply and low-earth orbit grows crowded, the consequences of a cyber breach could ripple far beyond space, from disrupted harvests to grounded aircraft and financial instability.

Kristiina explains the widening skills gap at the intersection of space engineering and cybersecurity. Universities may produce cyber specialists and aerospace engineers, but professionals fluent in both domains remain rare. In response, new educational initiatives are emerging in Estonia to combine these disciplines, reflecting the urgent demand for hybrid expertise.

We also examine the strategic dimension. As quantum computing capabilities evolve and cyber and kinetic threats converge, simulation environments become essential. Digital twin technologies allow nations and companies to rehearse worst-case scenarios without triggering real-world damage. From encrypted satellite commands to orbital collision risks, the stakes extend well beyond technical failure to societal trust itself.

By the end of our conversation, one theme stands out clearly. Cybersecurity is no longer confined to data centers and enterprise networks. It now extends into orbit, where resilience, interoperability, and trust must be engineered from the ground up.

Conversations From The Showfloor is your front-row pass to the most important conversations happening in enterprise technology today. Recorded live at global conferences, each episode captures candid discussions with leaders shaping the future of business, infrastructure, and security.

Search “Tech Talks Network” to discover other shows in the series and follow to hear new episodes as they drop from events around the world.

What role does cybersecurity play when the battlefield extends beyond Earth’s atmosphere? In this special episode of Conversations From The Showfloor, recorded live in Tallinn for the fifth anniversary of the Software Defined Space Conference, I sit down with Kalev Koidumäe, CEO of the Estonian Defence and Aerospace Industry Association.

We explore how a nation of just 1.3 million people has built global credibility in cyber resilience, defense technology, and space innovation. Estonia’s journey, shaped in part by the 2007 state-level cyberattack, has forged a culture where digital readiness is embedded across government, industry, and education. Cyber hygiene is taught in schools. Reserve officers bring operational insight into business. Public and private sectors collaborate with shared purpose.

Kalev explains how space has become a core defense domain within NATO, alongside land, sea, air, and cyber. Satellites now underpin operational planning, navigation, weather intelligence, targeting systems, and communications. In modern conflict, space infrastructure and cybersecurity are inseparable. Protecting software-defined systems has become as important as defending physical territory.

Our conversation also examines how lessons from the war in Ukraine are accelerating innovation across Europe. From AI-enabled battlefield analytics to autonomous systems and advanced sensor technologies, Estonia’s companies are carving out specialist roles within global supply chains. Smaller nations may not build the largest platforms, but they can provide highly specialized subsystems, software, and cyber capabilities that strengthen collective defense.

We also discuss the balance between sovereignty and collaboration. Estonia’s reserve army model, growing defense investments, and expanding industrial ecosystem reflect a society that sees innovation as a civic responsibility. Domestic resilience strengthens international partnerships. And as defense budgets rise across Europe, Estonia is positioning its ecosystem to contribute both locally and globally.

This episode offers a grounded, strategic look at how software, cyber readiness, and space technologies are reshaping modern defense. It also raises bigger questions about education, automation, AI, and the next generation of digital-native citizens who will inherit this rapidly evolving landscape.

So what can larger nations learn from Estonia’s approach to readiness, innovation, and collective security? And as space becomes increasingly software-defined, how should leaders rethink the relationship between cyber resilience and national defense?

Conversations From The Showfloor is your front-row pass to the most important conversations happening in enterprise technology today. Recorded live at global conferences, each episode captures candid discussions with leaders shaping the future of business, infrastructure, security, and innovation.

Search “Tech Talks Network” to discover other shows in the series and follow to hear new episodes as they drop from events around the world.

What happens when you record a security conversation in a venue built inside an Austrian mountain? You get something that feels sharper, more grounded, and far more human than a typical industry chat. I sat down with Adam Khan, VP of Global Security Operations at Barracuda XDR, and Eric Russo, Director of SOC Defensive Security, during Barracuda TechSummit25 in Alpbach, where the peaks rise on every side and the air seems to clear the noise around modern cybersecurity.

Adam and Eric lead the teams that track, interpret, and act on attacks moving across email, identity, networks, cloud, and endpoints. This is the engine room behind Barracuda XDR, and our conversation dug into what those operations actually look like when threats move fast and visibility is everything. What struck me most was the mix of optimism and realism. Adam speaks with three decades of hard-earned experience, yet carries a sense of purpose that feels rare in a field defined by bad headlines. Eric brings a forensic lens shaped by years inside the SOC, where decisions must be made in seconds rather than hours. Together they paint a picture of how attacks unfold today and why integrated defense has become the only viable way to keep pace.

We talked about the way attackers now operate as coordinated units with their own playbooks, and how the best cyber defenders are beginning to mirror that discipline. Adam shared a football formation metaphor that landed with everyone in the room, showing how the principles of pressure, spacing, and anticipation mirror what security teams deal with every day. That analogy extended into real stories of ransomware groups such as Akira, and how the Barracuda SOC has been intercepting attacks that begin with zero day VPN exploits and then cascade into email and endpoint compromise. Hearing both of them describe how XDR stitches those layers together into a single view made the stakes feel clearer. Without that shift, the noise, the tool sprawl, and the speed of attacks would bury even the most experienced teams.

There was also a moment where cybersecurity met Home Alone, and it worked in a way I never expected. Adam explained XDR through Kevin McCallister’s improvised defence of the family home, and it became the simplest way I have ever heard the concept explained. It reminded everyone listening why clarity matters, especially when the language in this industry can easily shut people out. Eric followed with a view on automation, AI, and the shift from reactive investigation to proactive threat hunting. The two perspectives created a fuller picture of where the field is heading and why integrated platforms are quickly replacing the old model of isolated point tools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrAsYyGo6Yk

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Recorded live at VMware Explore in Las Vegas, I sat down with Tasha Drew from Broadcom to talk about one of the hottest topics in enterprise tech: private AI. Fresh off the main stage, where she helped debut VMware Cloud Foundation Intelligent Assist and the expansion of VMware’s Private AI Services, Tasha shares her perspective on what’s driving adoption and why it matters now.

We examine the three core pillars of private AI: protecting intellectual property, safeguarding sensitive data, and managing private models with rigorous access controls. Tasha also explains how VMware’s Private AI Services are designed to move organizations from experimentation in the public cloud to production-ready deployments in their own private environments, delivering both privacy and cost efficiency.

From the launch of Intelligent Assist for VCF to the role of Model Context Protocol (MCP) in enabling agentic workflows, she offers insight into the innovations that are making AI-native private clouds a reality. We also dig into VMware’s partnerships with NVIDIA and AMD, the economics of cloud repatriation, and the practical reasons enterprises are choosing private AI over public options.

If you want a front-row seat to how VMware and Broadcom are shaping the next phase of enterprise AI, this episode captures the energy and insight straight from the show floor.

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Recorded live at Cisco Live, I speak with Cameron Ferdinands, Director of Networking and Datacenter Engineering at Groq, about how the company is redefining AI infrastructure. We explore Groq’s software-first approach to AI hardware, its use of Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switches, NX-OS, and Cisco Optics, and how this combination delivers faster AI inference, improved energy efficiency, and lower costs. From healthcare to autonomous vehicles, Cameron shares how Groq’s innovations are helping industries accelerate discovery and deploy AI at scale.

At Cisco Live in San Diego, I had the chance to sit down with Carlos Pereira, Cisco Fellow and Chief Architect for Customer Experience. You’ll hear it in the energy of this episode, Carlos isn’t just explaining Cisco’s AI vision; he’s lived through 25 years of evolution at the company and is now helping lead the transformation.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we explore:

• Why Carlos believes everything in customer experience is a workflow—and how agentic AI is finally giving those workflows the intelligence they’ve lacked
• How Cisco is embedding AI assistants directly inside its products, creating seamless support experiences with real-time resolution and context carryover
• The meaning behind "config confidence" and how it’s helping eliminate 25% of support cases caused by configuration errors
• The human element: why Cisco views AI as an augmenting force—not a replacement—and how it’s using blind tests and internal education to build trust and boost adoption
• What separates vendors who are experimenting with agentic AI from those who are actually scaling it across enterprise environments

Carlos also reflects on what’s driving mass AI adoption in customer support and why perfection is the wrong goal in this new era. You’ll walk away with real-world examples of agentic AI in action—and a clear view of where Cisco sees the future of customer experience heading.

📊 Referenced in this episode: The Cisco Agentic AI Report: 68% of customer support interactions will be AI-handled by 2028.

🎧 Whether you're a CX leader, IT decision-maker, or just curious about how Cisco is making AI real, this is a must-listen from the heart of Cisco Live.

Live from the buzzing showfloor at Cisco Live, I’m joined by two of Cisco’s top wireless minds: Matt MacPherson, Enterprise Wireless CTO, and Jerome Henry, wireless standards expert and co-author of Wi-Fi 7 In-Depth.

In this packed conversation, we unpack the real breakthroughs behind Cisco’s Wi-Fi 7 announcements and explore how next-gen connectivity is already transforming the enterprise experience. From stadiums and hospitals to warehouses and schools, wireless is no longer just about speed. It's about orchestration, precision, and trust.

You’ll hear:

• Why Wi-Fi 7 goes far beyond MLO (multi-link operation) and how it prioritizes real-time traffic based on actual needs
• How AI is already managing wireless infrastructure, optimizing channel use and radio power in real time
• Why fine timing measurement (FTM), BLE, UWB, and indoor GPS are unlocking hyper-accurate location services for smart buildings
• How Cisco Spaces is using wireless data to improve space utilization, wayfinding, and the overall user experience
• What it really takes to design high-density environments, especially when thousands of people show up and change the RF landscape
• And how Wi-Fi 8 and AI-native architectures are already in development

Want to go deeper? Grab Jerome’s book Wi-Fi 7 In-Depth to explore the thinking behind the standard. And keep an eye out for his upcoming title on AI and wireless.

In this episode of Conversations from the Show Floor, recorded live at Atlassian’s Team ’25 in Anaheim, we go deep with Jamil Valliani, Head of AI Products at Atlassian, to explore the company’s bold bet on generative AI: Rovo.

But this is not just another AI product launch. Jamil shares how Rovo’s enterprise search, contextual chat, and Agent Studio are working together to eliminate workplace friction, from triaging tickets to drafting executive summaries, and helping teams reclaim their time. We also dive into Atlassian’s decision to offer Rovo to all paid users at no additional cost, a move designed to fast-track adoption and encourage experimentation at scale.

With up to 2x ROI, 105 minutes saved per day, and 85% of users reporting better work quality, this is a rare look at how AI is not just automating tasks but transforming how teams collaborate, make decisions, and build culture.

Jamil breaks down what it means to work alongside AI teammates, what early adopters are building with over 3,000 agents already in play, and why leadership buy-in from founders to frontline teams is the secret to success. Whether you're just starting your AI journey or looking to scale, this episode offers real-world strategies to turn hype into habit.

Tune in for a front-row seat to the future of work, straight from the show floor.