Hanselminutes - Fresh Talk And Tech For Developers

Dr. Noriko Arai is a Japanese researcher in mathematical logic and artificial intelligence and a professor in the information and society research division of the National Institute of Informatics.  Her project pitting an AI against the University of Tokyo entrance examination got her thinking about how well young students are able to read. She started researching a new test to assess reading ability and draw attention to those junior high and high school students who cannot read well enough to understand their textbooks. Scott chats Dr Arai about AI, the future, and her experiences as a woman researcher in Japan.This episode of Hanselminutes is done in warm collaboration with our friends at the ACM ByteCast and is coproduced and published with the ACM. 

In this episode, Scott Hanselman talks to Guillermo Rauch, the founder of Vercel. Guillermo shares his vision of creating a platform that enables anyone to build and deploy powerful AI applications with ease and speed.  Scott and Guillermo explore the challenges and opportunities of democratizing AI, and how Vercel is empowering users to create solutions and templates optimized for developer joy.https://vercel.ai

Shaun Walker was at the forefront of open source in the .NET space as early as 2003 with the release of DotNetNuke. Scott sits down with Shaun to reflect on two decades of .NET open-source, what works, what doesn't, and what's sustainable and Shaun shares his new OSS venture, Oqtane!https://www.oqtane.org/

Danielle Boyer is an Indigenous (Ojibwe) robotics inventor and advocate for youth who has been teaching kids since she was ten. She focuses on youth advocacy and creates innovative learning solutions utilizing robots that she invents and donates to make technical education accessible. She sits down with Scott to talk about Robots and Language Preservation, and the intersection of Indigenous Culture and STEM.https://www.danielleboyer.orghttps://www.steamconnection.org

When Peter Ayedun was asked to write a paper school, his teacher insisted that he used a computer to create it. That moment started and defined a decade's long career in tech that took him from Nigeria to starting a company in the US. Scott chats with Peter about finding passion, finding empathy, and finding a career in tech as the CEO of TruGrid.

David Scott Bernstein is a passionate programmer with over 40 years experience, and he has just written a book that teaches you the art of prompt writing. He actually coauthored the book with ChatGPT itself. He sits down with Scott Hanselman to offer us a one-of-a-kind journey into the realm of AI language models. He's created a a practical and results-driven roadmap for engineering your prompts in such a way that you can tackle complex topics with ease.Learn more at https://passprog.com/

Tsavo Knott and the team at Pieces have an app that smooths the spaces between your developer tools. It makes you smarter and makes your workflow more seamless as you move code context from ide to web, from browser tab to clipboard, through your entire tool chain. How does Pieces promise to redefine atomic productivity for developers? Scott finds out of they will take code snippets to the next level on this episode.https://pieces.app/

Are you struggling with writing clear, concise, and effective technical documents? Do you want to learn how to improve your writing skills and communicate better with your audience? Scott interviews Pam Hurley, PhD, the founder and president of Hurley Write, Inc., a small business that specializes in teaching customized technical, business, and scientific writing courses. Pam has over 30 years of experience in helping professionals from various fields and industries to write better documents in less time.https://www.hurleywrite.com/

Sarah Rainsberger owns technical documentation at Astro. What was her path into open source and technology? It might surprise you. Sarah started as an avid user of the Astro project and turned it into a career. She chats with scott about how important technical writing and documentation is to the end user experience.

Saghar Salehi is a former member of the Afghan girls’ robotics team. The team became a symbol for the progress of Afghan women. They participated in the global robotics competition held in the US in 2017 and won an award for “courageous achievement” given to teams who persevere through trying circumstances. The team was able to escape Afghanistan a few months ago, as the Taliban resurged. Scott talks with Saghar about the importance of STEM education and her plans for the future.

Dr. Julie Gurner is a doctor of psychology and executive performance coach with nearly a decade of experience working with some of the nation’s top tech and finance executives and teams. She is the founder of the Ultra Successful, a newsletter that provides insights into the psychology behind what ultra-successful people do differently to achieve their goals. She is also an executive performance coach who has been compared to Wendy Rhoades of ‘Billions’ by The Wall Street Journal. Scott chats with Dr. Gurner about the science of performance.https://drgurner.substack.com/ 

Ankita Kulkarni has taken the learnings from her career as an engineering leader and turned it into a course, community, and ebook. Scott talks to Ankita about the The Engineering Leader's Playbook. As a leader working in tech for over a decade, she's got lots to share in this episode! Visit Ankita's website, with a custom page for Hanselminutes Podcast listeners!Check out Ankita's book "The Engineering Leader's Playbook" with a 25% of coupon for listeners

In this episode, we talk to Dr. Nicki Washington, a Professor of the Practice of Computer Science at Duke University. She shares her insights on how identity and cultural competence affect the computing disciplines, from education to industry, and why they are essential for developing inclusive and ethical technologies. We also discuss her courseware which explores the diversity challenges in computer science and the effects that this lack of inclusion has on technology and technologists. Tune in to learn more about Dr. Washington’s journey in tech and her vision for a more culturally competent computer science field.

Scott sits down with Ted Neward to talk about the history and shape of data. From mainframes to ER diagrams to SQL Server to Object Databases and Document Databases, why has the way we access and store data changed over the years and what we can learn from this history? 

Scott chats with engineer, community leader, and Developer Relations Lead at Okta Corey Weathers on this episode. Shares his story about how he became interested in technology, we get a glimpse into his daily work and how he manages his teams and nurtures the next generation of developer advocate.

Franchesca Ramsey is an comedian, writer, actor, producer, activist, and content creator. She's also a proud Union Member of both the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA). She sits down with Scott to talk about the importance of unions, what it means to be a "working actor" and what we can do as consumers of media to support the strike. What does it mean to be a scab? Will AI help or hinder a creative's ability to make living?https://www.sagaftrastrike.org/

Veni Kunche is a coder, a maker, and a founder. After working as a Software Engineer since 2003, she quit her job in tech to start her own company, https://www.diversifytech.com!

In this episode, we talk to Oren Eini from RavenDB. RavenDB is a NoSQL document database that offers high performance, scalability, and security. Oren shares his insights on why performance is not just a feature, but a service that developers and customers expect and demand. He also explains how RavenDB achieves fast and reliable data access, how it handles complex queries and distributed transactions, and how it leverages the cloud to optimize resource utilization and cost efficiency!Sponsor: Head over to elevateai.com/hanselminutes to sign up today and get started!