Unmissables with Ariba Jahan
Unmissables with Ariba Jahan is a podcast about technology, behavior, and trust. Host Ariba Jahan talks with builders, strategists, and leaders about what they're building, the tensions they're working through, and the questions they keep coming back to. Episodes range from deep dives into a single product or decision to broader explorations of the systems underneath. Topics include how products earn loyalty, how data practices shape what gets prioritized, and how AI is changing what companies build. Each episode offers a framework, question, or pattern that listeners will keep noticing.
Episodes
The Biggest Competitor to Your Product Might Be Paper | Daniel Burka, Mahima Chandak & Elyce Cole, Hard Problems
What if the hardest part of building technology isn’t the interface, it’s earning a place in systems that already work?Daniel Burka left Google Ventures to spend eight years building health tech in rural clinics across India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Sri Lanka. Mahima Chandak builds AI-powered screening tools for frontline healthcare workers. Elyce Cole is the organizational psychologist focused
The Behaviors You Reward Are Your Real Culture | Kit Krugman, Foursquare
What happens when you stop talking about culture and start designing it like a system?In this episode, I talk with Kit Krugman, SVP of People & Culture at Foursquare, about what it actually takes to build organizations that move fast without burning people out. Kit spent years advising companies like LinkedIn, Microsoft, and CHANEL on organizational design at co:collective. Now she’s doing the wor
Beyond Dystopia: Designing Futures You Can Live In | Keely Adler & Caitlin Keeley, RADAR
Most futures work stops at trend decks that never leave the room. RADAR is doing something different. As a digital cooperative, they turn collective imagination into practice—research cycles, rituals, grants, and cultural artifacts people can actually use.I’m joined by Keely Adler (Head of Practice) and Caitlin Keeley (Head of Imagination) to talk about futures you can live in—not just look at. We
Making the Invisible Interactive: Immersive Storytelling with Aditi Rajagopal
What does it take to design stories people can step into and feel?Aditi Rajagopal is the Head of Experience Design, Immersive at Atlantic Studios, where she creates interactive educational and entertainment experiences for platforms like Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest. Her recent project, Cosmos in Focus—a virtual planetarium featured at SXSW, turns James Webb Space Telescope data into an emotion
Designing Health Tech When Trust Is the Product | Ambreen Molitor
What does it take to build digital health products that center care, clarity, and trust?In this episode, I talk with Ambreen Molitor, a product leader working at the intersection of reproductive health, equity, and digital access. At Planned Parenthood, where she served as National Director of Product Innovation, Ambreen helped launch and redesign award-winning tools like Roo, an AI-powered chatbo
How Futures Thinking Sharpens Strategy | Tameka Vasquez
Most companies are stuck toggling between reacting to the moment and chasing the next big thing. Tameka Vasquez helps them pause, zoom out, and build strategy that doesn’t just respond, but reimagines.In this episode, we unpack what futures thinking actually looks like in practice: how to build clarity inside complexity, what makes vision operational (not just aspirational), and why tiny shifts—no
The Evolving Landscape of Digital Innovation: Insights on livestream economy, immersive digital ecosystems, gaming, and AI from Jessica Berger | S01E09
Have you ever thought about having a digital twin?In this episode of Up Next in Tech, I sit down with Jessica Berger, SVP of Innovation at Publicis Media. Admirably known for her insight and understanding of cutting-edge technology, Jessica shares her expertise on trends like web3, AI, extended reality, and gaming. In this conversation, we focused on 4 emerging trends that Jessica's team highlight
Spatial Computing and Building for Gen Alpha with Chief Futurist, Cathy Hackl | S01E08
In this episode, I sit down with Cathy Hackl to discuss her journey and inspiration from being a journalist to becoming a futurist and the godmother of the metaverse. We explored what brands should keep in mind when building for Generation Alpha - a group of tech natives who are rewiring the future. Cathy also explained the concept of spatial computing and its applications in various industries an
What does it take to work in the creative innovation industry? An insider's perspective with Chris Denson | S01E07
In this episode, I had the chance to speak with my good friend, Chris Denson, who is a marketer, innovation coach, multimedia host, and bestselling author of the book- “10 Essential Rules for Breaking Essential Rules”. Conversations around innovation in the creative, advertising or media side often focuses only on the outputs, so we focused this episode on everything else. We lifted the hood on th
Expanding Digital Identity Through Community Driven Virtual Fashion with Nirmala Shome of the Fabricant | S01 E06
The runway is going virtual, empowering new creators and breaking industry boundaries through community-driven digital fashion. In this episode, I chat with Nirmala Shome, the Head of Marketing and Growth at a digital fashion house, The Fabricant, to break down what that means, how they’re trying to build a new fashion industry where everybody participates and profits while leveraging blockchain a
Blockchain, Brands and the Future of Consumer Experience and Access with Naimul Huq | S01 E05
When a machine is super intelligent, can we even reason with it? Can we even tell it what to do? Can we understand it at all? In this episode, I sit down with Naimul Huq, former SVP of Operations at Vayner3 and now CEO of Dr. Studio to dig into these questions about AI, and the tech evolution from the first iteration of social media to where we’re headed next. With a wealth of experience spanning
Making AI Digital Friends in Augmented Worlds with Alex Herrity of Anima | S01E04
What’s the art of the possible when you blend technologies like AI, augmented reality (AR), and blockchain with play? Turns out, ownable digital companions that you can talk to and interact with, called OnlyBots. It's a new era of Tamagotchis, y’all.🤖In this episode I sit down with Alex Herrity, who is a cofounder of Anima, a gaming and interactive technology company and has spent his career b
Unlocking the Power of DAOs and Web3 Marketing with Simon Yi of Myosin.xyz | S01 E01
What are Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) and how do they work? What exactly does it mean to market “direct-to-community”? In this episode, I sat down with Simon Yi, co-founder of the marketing DAO, Myosin.xyz, where he digs into all of this, how he saw the power of DAOs during his time at ConsenSys and what inspired him to start a service agency that is a collectively-owned DAO. Sim
Hype vs. Momentum: Decoding Cultural Patterns w/ Matt Klein of Zine & Reddit | S01 E02
How do you know when something is a trend or just hype? What trends should we even pay attention to right now? In this episode I sit down with Webby Award-winning writer Matt Klein, a digital anthropologist and quantitative futurist with a decade of experience in trend forecasting, communications and marketing to dig into these questions. We also go into how he recognized a gap in rigorous cultura
Ethical Design and Responsible AI with Kat Zhou of <Design Ethically> | S01 E03
My guest today is Kat Zhou, a senior product designer who created the toolkit that helps teams forecast the ethical consequences of their products. She also just finished her Master's degree exploring AI Ethics and Society at Cambridge University. She talks about her origin story and the immigrant mindsets that were passed on to her from her parents and how she soon realized that education should
