Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to Digitally
Curious, a podcast to help you
navigate the future of AI andbeyond.
Your host is world-renownedfuturist and author of Digitally
Curious, Andrew Grill.
SPEAKER_01 (00:14):
Today's guest is
Jill Switelski, CEO of Infrared
Kinetics, a trailblazing techcompany shaking up what's
possible with real-time trackingand precision data.
Formerly recognised as one ofEurope's most dynamic general
counsel, Jill now leads a teamthat's transforming how
high-speed objects are tracked,not just in motorsport, but
across industries wheremilliseconds decide who wins and
(00:36):
who loses.
With expertise spanning bothlore and disruptive technology
and partnerships that reach fromFormula One icons to major
enterprise players, Jill's hereto share insights into the
infrastructure challenges of theAI decade and how infrared
kinetics breakthroughs aresetting new standards for the
future.
Welcome, Jill.
Oh, thank you for having me,Andrew.
(00:56):
Now we met at an event titledThe Future of Technology
following the UK election lastyear at the offices of Harbaugh
and Lewis when we discovered wehad mutual connections to Steve
Young at Dell and the late DavidKelty.
We chatted about infraredkinetics and I decided you're a
must-have on the podcast.
So here you are.
Now you've had a fascinatingcareer journey from being a
corporate lawyer now to leadinga breakthrough technology
(01:17):
company.
What sparked your transitionfrom the legal world to becoming
CEO of a company that'sliterally redefining real-time
intelligence?
SPEAKER_02 (01:25):
I've always been
interested in intellectual
property, and when I was a babylawyer, I was very lucky because
I worked at a company calledQuaker Oates and then I moved to
Sony, and it was the start ofthe Copyrights, Designs and
Patents Act a million years ago,1988, when the value of
intellectual property was in itsinfancy in being recognised.
(01:46):
You didn't even at that pointhave on balance sheet
valuations, which would seemcrazy to most businesses today,
bearing in mind things likepatent box and RD tax credits.
Finance directors are literallybegging CTOs, give me some
intellectual property that I canput onto the books.
But it didn't happen then.
But Sony was reallyforward-thinking, and I was so
(02:07):
lucky because I got to work withAkia Marita, and that's when I
started my journey looking athow you can transform the world
through IP.
And that's when I was DavidKelty's founding client.
I was the first client of Kelty.
Um, God bless him.
So, and he's he was godfather tomy two sons as well.
So that's how I began.
SPEAKER_01 (02:27):
It's amazing how in
the technology space there's
serendipity, and in London, I'vemet so many people that have
this interwoven connection, andwe actually saw each other again
a few weeks ago at a Dell eventwhere I was speaking, and it was
great to see you there as well.
We'll talk about yourrelationship with Dell in a
minute.
Let's turn to motorsport.
With Lord Alexander Heskith, theLegendary Formula One team
founder who gave James Hunt hisbig break on your board.
(02:49):
How has his motorsport pedigreeinfluenced your approach to
proving technology under themost extreme conditions that you
get in Formula One?
SPEAKER_02 (02:56):
He is amazing, and
it's really strange because
people sometimes say to me, ishe still around?
He is a joy to work with.
He can read the room likenobody, and if anybody
underestimates him, it's attheir own peril.
Um, so he is very challenging.
And the most important thinghe's wanted for me, Andrew, is
(03:17):
this has to work all day, everyday, and any fool, even you,
Gilly, need to be able tooperate this.
So that's what he made me do.
And he was instrumental in usgoing to Mallory Park.
Um, and again, it's interestingbecause when you look at the
tech and you look at theexploitation of intellectual
property portfolios, you if youhaven't got the system out there
(03:39):
that people can almost touch andsee, then it's not real to
people.
And it's not enough to just bevery clever or just have
patents.
You've got to be able todemonstrate you can do it.
So we've been so lucky.
We've had legends like PatSimmons, who's been a huge
supporter, the old lead engineerat Formula One, who's now
(04:00):
working with Mario Andretti inthe States, come along and see
that we could do what we it wesaid we could do on the CAN.
And Alexander has been front andcentre of that.
SPEAKER_01 (04:10):
Well, let's talk
about the technology and what's
the exact problem that you'resolving?
SPEAKER_02 (04:15):
Well, what we've
done is we've married the real
world in the digital world.
So uh if you look at things likeGPS, even when you're looking at
things like what three words,um, GPS is only good to a
certain tune.
If you go, if you're in Londonand you you don't know, you're
in a part of London you don'tknow, you walk between two
office blocks, you cannot findwhere you are because GPS is
(04:36):
blocking.
You've only got to look atwhat's happening in space with
satellites.
Again, GPS is vulnerable tointerference by foreign powers.
But infrared isn't, it'sresilient all the time, and it's
based on military-grade tech,which is where it was born out
of, where the inventor,Professor Bradley, was lead
engineer at BA systems.
(04:57):
So we it it does everything thatwe need it to do and it locks on
and it doesn't lose.
SPEAKER_01 (05:03):
You said we're
trying to build the AI decade on
infrastructure design when theWalken was cutting edge.
Can you paint us a picture ofjust how stark this mismatch is?
I mean, GPS has been around fora long time and the technology
hasn't really evolved becauseyou've got to put it up in space
and you can't really tinker withit.
SPEAKER_02 (05:17):
No, you can't.
And as I say, you're dependenton the satellite signals.
So you with the thing about IRKand the infrared is because of
the way that we squirt the data,because it is infrared, we're
not using images.
So the data is compressed.
So when you come to Mallory, youwill look out of the window of
the control tower, Andrew, andyou'll see all the cars racing
(05:40):
around at high speed.
And you look at the screen andyou'll see the digital twin, and
that's where we're able to putthe ghost car on the grid, the
extra car, whether you'reNASCAR, IndyCar, F1, uh, World
of Outlaws, Dirt Track Racing,anything, we can put the ghost
car on the grid, and anyoneanywhere in the world can race
with their real-time heroes.
(06:01):
And the other beauty of it isbecause we do it on a pixel
phone, it means you don't needany expensive kit.
One of my most exciting thingsis there's a video and it's kids
using this as a console.
So you could be anywhere in theworld in a country where you
know there's not muchinfrastructure, but you'll be
(06:22):
able to join in.
And what does that mean?
That means that we can find thenext Formula One champion from
anywhere.
They don't need to be uh in a ina a motor school, they don't
need to be in the UK or America,they can literally be anywhere.
It opens up the opportunities toeverybody, and it obviously it
feeds into STEM, so there's ahuge education piece in it as
(06:45):
well.
SPEAKER_01 (06:45):
So you mentioned
memory park.
Walk me through what a setuplooks like.
So you go to the track, you'vegot to put cameras around there.
How does it actually work?
SPEAKER_02 (06:53):
We've got masts that
uh are around the circuit, and
then we've got the cameras umthat are on top of the masts, so
we've got a 360 of the circuit,and then we've got emitters that
are like a two P piece that goon the vehicles, and we're
refining those all the timebecause we're now doing them for
um bikes like Moto GP, sothey've got to be super, super
(07:16):
light and super tiny.
Um, so the the thing that I'mdoing all of the time with all
of this tech is refining andrefining and refining.
So I'm obviously advancing theintellectual property portfolios
you'd expect me to do, so Ialways stay ahead of the game,
but at the same time, in tandem,we invest a huge amount of money
in RD to make sure that weoperate at an optimal level the
(07:40):
whole time.
So our first emitters were likethe size of an orange, and
within 12 months, we've gotthem, as I say, to the size of a
two-p piece, and they'll becomesmaller.
Um, and and that just makes iteasier for it to be used across
all motorsports.
SPEAKER_01 (07:56):
So, motorsports is a
really good example because it's
high pressure, it's fast, it'snoisy, it's dirty, and so if it
works there, it's going to workalmost everywhere.
The digital twin you mentioned,I've talked about digital twins
on the podcast before.
For our listener that is comingacross this term for the first
time, what is a digital twin andwhy should they care about them?
SPEAKER_02 (08:14):
Well, what it does
is it marries the real world
with the virtual world.
And one of the things that wesee in all the research we've
done, the younger generation,don't want AI.
They want to be able toparticipate in the real world,
and that's what we allow them todo with the marrying of that.
So you see, as I said before,you look out of the control
tower, you see the cars, youlook at the screen, and it's a
(08:37):
true digital representation ofwhat's there in real time.
There's absolutely no lag.
It is it's faster than you canthink or blink.
Um, so you've got that, and andit leads on to all sorts of
things.
I mean, that the there arevarious verticals in there.
We chose motorsports becauseit's something that people can
relate to.
Track limits is a massive issue.
(08:59):
So we've now proved that we canin real time show if a car's
gone out of track limits, you'renot waiting hours to find out if
you've gone down the podium oryou're not even on the podium,
you know straight away.
And it's a safety aid and atraining aid as well.
So you can track everything uheverywhere on the circuit.
So we've seen examples inFormula One where there's been a
(09:21):
vehicle on the circuit thatpeople weren't aware of and
there'd been near misses andthere have been fatalities.
Whereas with our system, nothinglike that could happen.
You know where everything is allof the time.
SPEAKER_01 (09:32):
Motorsports, one
example.
Uh you've identified defence,logistics, and smart cities.
Walk me through how yourtechnology could be used in
those environments.
SPEAKER_02 (09:40):
We can do road
pricing, we can do dynamic road
pricing um on motorways becausethey've got the infrastructure,
they've already got the lightingthere.
So it'd be very easy to say ifyou're on the M25 at 3 a.m.,
there's no charge.
If you're on the M25 at 8 a.m.,it's going to cost you X.
And why is that important?
Because they're going to loseall this money on uh fuel duty
(10:03):
because we're moving toelectric, yes, slower than
everybody thought, but it'sstill coming.
And I'm amazed that we've gotthis tech that answers those
problems.
Um and it it's been like wadingthrough treacle trying to get
anyone to look at us.
But those are the sort ofproblems that we can solve.
And as I say, the the satelliteissues, the jamming of
(10:24):
satellites.
Um we have uh we're launching onThursday, super exciting.
We're doing um the world's firstum drone delivery.
So we're going to be deliveringprecisely to a tiny spot, again,
like a two P piece.
We'll be delivering the cargothere to the emitter.
(10:46):
So that for me again isphenomenal.
What does it mean?
It means you can have your pizzadelivered to your balcony.
If you currently look at the GPSofferings, they can get you
near, but they can't get youthere.
And we can get you right whereyou need to be.
So we'll be doing all of that.
Drone corridors will come, andagain, that that's that that is
(11:07):
going to happen, and you'regoing to need some form of
regulation, a bit like airtraffic control.
IRK can come in there with asafety case, so you'll be able
to run the drone corridors.
Um, you could use railway linesthat go straight into the city
as a sort of a guide, but you'llhave that safety case there.
You're not going to have to senda man in a van to find out
(11:30):
what's happened when there's aproblem on a railway track.
You just send the drone up, ithas a look, it goes back,
squirts the pictures, and docksand recharges again.
So you just have the it'll allbe automated.
It will allow railways to runrun more efficiently because
you'll know where every train isall of the time.
(11:51):
So you'll be able to run morestock on the lines safely.
So you'll be able to have moretrains, um, less stock needed
back at the ranch because you'llbe running them through and
knowing exactly where they arefor the whole time.
And as I say, the safety casefor that is huge.
SPEAKER_01 (12:09):
Infrared, and again,
just for our listeners, if
you've got a remote control andyou point it at the telly,
that's why the telly changes.
But if you point it away, itisn't working, it needs line of
sight.
So, how will you have to havethe uh receivers on a railway
track?
Will you have to have them everysort of hundred metres or so?
SPEAKER_02 (12:25):
Well, you can have
the emitters on a train, so
you're not you have the emitterson the train, and then because
you've got the the gantries, um,you can have the the cameras on
the gantries at the infrareds.
So you the infrastructure againis already there.
So it's not massive.
And what we've done is when wefirst started at Mallory,
obviously it's an experiment,it's a lab, the costs are huge,
(12:48):
but we've brought the costsright down now through a very
clever use of how we employ thetech.
For a small circuit, you'dprobably be looking at less than
half a million pounds, and therevenue streams you get from
that will be phenomenal.
One of the things that was saidto me when I was actually at um
Formula One recently was uh itwas somebody very senior at
(13:11):
Microsoft saying he loved it,but he only saw his driver for
probably two minutes of thewhole of the race.
Well, you can follow yourdriver.
If you want to look at theaction on a hairpin bend, you
can be there.
If you want a 360 of the track,you can look up the whole of the
track.
So it really gives um engagementfor fans in the stadium.
(13:33):
But Ditto at home, because youcan do the same at home with
your phone, you can just viewwherever you want to.
If you don't want a game, youcan just view whatever.
If you want a game with thefamily, you'll get your phones
out and race against each other.
Um, so there's a myriad ofofferings that will really
enhance any sporting event.
SPEAKER_01 (13:53):
So your system
processes vast amounts of data
with near zero latency byfocusing only on beacon
emissions rather than the fullimagery.
To me, this soundscounterintuitive.
How does less data actually giveyou more precision and speed?
SPEAKER_02 (14:04):
It's the way we
compress it.
So it's how you compress it thatgives you exactly that quicker,
speedier.
And we uh because we don't wedon't use um the normal camera
imagery, camera imagery sucks upso much bandwidth.
It was really interesting.
Um, when Donald Trump went tothe NASCAR Blue Ribbon event,
(14:25):
there were loads of comments.
These poor commentators, peoplewere really critical of the of
the way that the thing waspresented on the screen.
And it was nothing to do withthe commentators, it was the GPS
lost um uh uh lock, andtherefore the commentators
couldn't see where anything was,so you had big periods of time
where you weren't looking atanything on the screen.
(14:46):
So that would never happen withour tech.
SPEAKER_01 (14:49):
Now you mentioned
Professor Andrew Bradley, who
was instrumental in developingthis technology.
So, how did the collaborationbetween academic research,
motorsport expertise, and yourbusiness acumen create something
that established tech giantshaven't achieved yet?
SPEAKER_02 (15:01):
You raised something
interesting when we last met,
which is how come it hasn't beendone by bigger companies?
And I think when you're abehemoth, sometimes you're not
looking at what's in front ofyou and seeing what the
applications can be.
You're looking at the nextthing, you're not examining
what's actually in that cupboardand thinking, well, I've got
(15:22):
that already.
What if I used it in a slightlydifferent way?
So um I was introduced to Andrewby Sir Richard Evans, who was
the ex-CEO and then chair of BAESystems, and he is now our
chairman, and he said, Oh, thisguy uh he worked for me, he says
he's got some ideas.
So Andrew came to see me andhe'd applied for a UK patent,
(15:45):
the worst thing you couldpossibly do, because it's then
in the public domain, and anyonecan use it.
So I explained to him what heneeded to do, and I don't think
he was convinced.
So I asked Kelty to give him auh a bit of time.
I said, Would you see him forme?
Because I pay you a lot ofmoney, would you give him an
hour of your time for free?
And they took him through whatI'd said and and pointed out
(16:08):
actually, she she knows whatshe's doing, this is what you
need to do.
So he came back to me and weworked out how we would
structure it, and then weapplied for the first patents,
and it's gone on from there, andwe worked very closely together.
And um, when the Ukraine warstarted, we were working with um
a huge company, and they said,Would you park everything?
(16:29):
Because we now have to dodifferent things.
And I said, You can't parkanything where intellectual
property is concerned becausethere's always someone snapping
at your heels, so I've got tocontinuously enhance this
offering, um, and and that'swhat I did.
So we we just thought, let'sjust get busy and get that out
there.
And we built Mallory in fivemonths, start to finish.
(16:51):
Um, and now um it's fantastic.
You asked me a question aboutwhat's it like in the control
tower.
When I first started at Mallory,and you were in the control
tower, it was absolute chaos.
It was like, is it working?
Is it this?
What's happening?
Now, when you go into thecontrol tower, it's completely
(17:12):
calm, it's completely peaceful,everything works at the touch of
a button, and it's justfantastic.
So I was there a few weeks ago,and we had a rig set up, and we
had um a gamer as well gaming ona screen, and we're able to film
the whole lot.
So you're seeing the raceoutside, you're seeing the race
(17:35):
on the screen, you're seeingsomeone gaming on their phone,
and then you're seeing someonein the rig racing real time, the
ghost cars out there, andthey're on the rig racing in the
ghost car.
So, yeah, it's fantastic.
SPEAKER_01 (17:50):
We mentioned your
work with Dell and Steve Young.
So, how's Dell helping you getthis to market?
SPEAKER_02 (17:55):
Well, what was
brilliant about that was we
started off, we were reallytiny.
I obviously put my own moneyinto it to kick start it, and uh
getting the attention of someonelike Dell is really tricky
because there's loads ofbusinesses out there that want
to do this, want to do that.
I think the fact that we werecreating a real product at
(18:15):
Mallory meant that they lookedat us.
So we weren't going along justsaying we've got some clever
ideas.
We were able to say, This iswhat we're building, come and
take a look.
And they looked at that and theyhelped us look at military grade
tech for the laptops that sit atthe bottom of the um polls that
process everything.
(18:35):
Um, and they just reallybelieved in us um and and opened
doors.
And I I've been really, reallylucky because I work with some
amazing senior people at Delland have been invited into
things as a result of that.
But they do they do believe inwhat we're doing.
SPEAKER_01 (18:50):
So let's look at the
business model and what the
future looks like.
You've described uh InfrayConnects as creating revenue
streams before, during, andafter events rather than just
being a sunk cost like GPSsystems.
Walk us through how thistransforms the economic for
circuits, event organizers, andsponsors.
SPEAKER_02 (19:05):
Well, I think what's
fantastic about it is lots of
tracks, um, small circuits runon a shoestring.
And what we can do there is youcan have digital advertising,
which is very easy to do.
So you could, depending on thedemographic, um, you can um let
fans pay for a different in-fanexperience, so there's some
revenue there.
Um, if you're doing uh racedays, you can race against
(19:27):
yourself, you can test yourtimes, your vehicles tracked
when you go home.
You've still got that racepackage.
You're not just going away witha video and looking at yourself,
you can actually race againstyourself again, beat your times,
um, race against your mateswho've been at the same event
with you.
So it means that circuits don'thave to charge an awful lot, but
(19:48):
there will be significantrevenue generation for there
that they're not getting at themoment.
And for bigger circuits, it'sendless because you've got the
streaming, so you can work outwhat you're going to do on that,
however, you want to monetizethat.
You've got the gaming.
And it's very interesting.
Formula One made a comment a fewmonths ago about how far behind
(20:10):
they were in the world of sportsbetting.
Well, obviously, this just readson to sports betting as well,
because you can bet however youwant to bet.
What this allows you to do istightly manage it, but also make
sure that circuits exploit it ina responsible way.
The safety case is huge, andalso the STEM case or STEAM, if
you want to add the arts intoit, bringing that younger
(20:32):
generation into things.
So it alters the demographic ofracing because the you can look
at it now and you, you know,it's it's white male 40s, 50s,
that will change completely.
It's going to be young people,and obviously with all the
safety wrappers around it,children learning about it and
being interested in it becausethey can see racing is something
(20:54):
super exciting to them, but theydon't realize they're learning
about physics, they're learningabout math while this is all
going on.
And you can tell I'm reallyexcited about it.
I really am.
I'm really proud of what my teamhave achieved.
SPEAKER_01 (21:06):
Well, you're clearly
building infrastructure for what
you call a new reality syncstandard.
So let's look forward in fiveyears' time when this technology
is deployed globally acrossmultiple industries.
How do you think it will changethe way we interact with the
world around us?
SPEAKER_02 (21:19):
You will be able to
step back and absorb in a way
that you can't at the moment.
If things aren't always working,if you're waiting for something
to go wrong, then you're you'realmost on edge, aren't you?
That's sort of slightlyhyper-vigilant.
This works all day, every day.
So it takes all of that stressout of it.
(21:39):
And I don't know where I'll bein five years' time because
we'll be looking at differentthings, we will have done
different things.
And for the technically mindedon here who understand things
like continuations, forbackpositions, how you future-proof,
we're doing all of that at themoment, but we're also
continuously developing.
So I think life will be a loteasier, and I think it's a
(22:02):
testament to how you can use AIto the greater good.
Um, you know, you don't need tobe nervous about it.
If you if you approach it in theright way and you make it work
for you, don't let tail wag dog,uh, dog wags tail.
And that's what IRK will enabledigital industries to do in any
vertical.
SPEAKER_01 (22:22):
Final question
before I quick fire round.
What's your ultimate vision forIRK's impact on society?
SPEAKER_02 (22:28):
You don't say things
change the world.
What it does is it gives youcertainty, you've got certainty
that if you're using this tech,it will always work for you.
So if you're deliveringmedicines to somebody, you know
they're gonna get there andyou'll always know where they
are.
You if you're deliveringsomething in a war theatre, you
(22:49):
aren't using troops, you'reusing this tech.
If you're delivering somethingin a high-risk environment, you
know it's going to be okay.
So, you know, the jet isn'tgoing to fall off the aircraft
carrier because it will knowprecisely where to land and it
will land in that spot and itwill be safe for everybody.
So I just think enhancingpeople's lives and making
(23:11):
people's lives safer.
SPEAKER_01 (23:12):
We're up to my
favourite part of the show, the
quickfire round where we learnmore about our guests.
Window or aisle?
Window.
Your biggest hope for this yearand next.
SPEAKER_02 (23:20):
I'd like government
to really look at tech like ours
and allow us in.
It's very difficult to get in.
And I think that is that is thebiggest thing for this year and
next year.
Please look at us and give us achance to explain what we can do
for you.
SPEAKER_01 (23:36):
Well, I know that
some senior politicians do
listen to our podcast and theiradvisors do, so let's hope they
listen to this one.
I wish that AI could do all ofmy admin.
The first thing I asked ChatGPTwas How creative can you be
without getting it wrong?
The app you use most on yourphone.
WhatsApp.
The best advice you've everreceived.
Never give in.
What are you reading at themoment?
SPEAKER_02 (23:55):
I'm actually
rereading the Great Gatsby,
because I liked it as a bookanyway, and there's a lesson in
there for all of us at themoment.
Who should I invite next ontothe podcast?
Poppy Gustavuson.
SPEAKER_01 (24:06):
How do you want to
be remembered?
SPEAKER_02 (24:08):
As someone that is
dynamic but kind, thoughtful but
pushes barriers, and nowherewould it ever be said, and then
she gave up.
SPEAKER_01 (24:18):
So, as the
actionable futurist, I always
like to understand what threeactionable things should our
audience do today to understandhow technology such as yours can
be a winning strategy for anybusiness.
SPEAKER_02 (24:29):
I thought about this
long and hard, Andrew, and I
took the title of your book, BeCurious.
Be curious, because if you'renot curious, you're gonna miss
it.
And that feeds back into whatyou said about why have big
companies not done this becausethey're not curious.
So I think be curious, beopen-minded, and challenge and
(24:51):
ask the stupidest question youcan think of because it's
usually the most importantquestion out there.
SPEAKER_01 (24:57):
Jill, this has been
a fantastic discussion.
How can we find out more aboutyou and your work?
SPEAKER_02 (25:01):
You can look at the
Infrared Kinetics website and
see all the videos of what we'redoing.
We're on LinkedIn as well, um,and and I'm on LinkedIn too.
The Infrared Kinetics website isthere and it's updated
continuously.
And we also we're in a lot ofprint media, and and that's on
there as well, so you'll be ableto read up on us and get in
(25:22):
touch if you're interested,because we'd love to talk to
anybody, and it doesn't matterhow big or small you are, just
reach out because we may be ableto help.
SPEAKER_01 (25:30):
Great to talk again
and good to see you.
SPEAKER_02 (25:32):
Well, thank you so
much.
It's been an absolute pleasureto talk to you, Andrew.
And I want to say I'm reallypleased that people are seeing
you for what you are, and thatthe real groundbreaking
disruptor that you are.
I think that's why we get onactually.
SPEAKER_00 (25:46):
That's very kind.
Thanks very much, and see yousoon.
Bye.
Thank you for listening toDigitally Curious.
You can find all of our previousshows at digitallycurious.ai.
Andrew's book, DigitallyCurious, your simple guide to
navigating the future of AI andbeyond, is available at
digitallycurious.ai.
(26:08):
Until next time, we invite youto stay digitally curious.