Emerging tech after the buzzword phase.
RIoT Underground brings entrepreneurs, technologists, and organization builders into practical conversations about emerging technology. Recent episodes move from industrial design and AI adoption to deep tech incubation, worker-safety analytics, IoT distribution, and entrepreneurship education.
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RIoT Underground is a technology conversation show focused on the people and organizations turning emerging tools into working businesses, products, and regional capacity. IoT remains part of its center of gravity, but the recent run shows a wider field: AI, industrial design, data analytics, deep tech, entrepreneurship education, workplace safety, and founder ecosystems. The show often begins with a light personal prompt. Then it settles into concrete operational questions. Mike Laut’s episode frames industrial design as more than software-era aesthetics, bringing craftsmanship, manufacturing, product value, and AI-enabled iteration into the same conversation. Don Shin’s conversation connects AI adoption to hiring, initiative, education, failure, and the changing value of credentials. Ryan Abel’s live episode puts culture beside code, asking how teams stay curious and capable as AI changes software work. Krista Covey’s episode brings deep tech into the language of incubators, jobs, investment, and return on effort. Bobby Shkolnikov’s SAS campus conversation puts IoT commercialization into camera systems, worker safety, customer networks, hardware choices, and partner ecosystems. Brian Bielawski’s episode makes distribution itself part of the story, explaining CalChip Connect’s place in the IoT market. Katie Gailes brings entrepreneurship into higher education and municipal context. Swathi Young and Ujjwala Kashkari bring the community side through the D.C. Emerging Technology Meetup Group and its business-user perspective on AI and machine learning. The show’s register is direct, curious, and founder-adjacent. It does not treat emerging technology as an abstract trend. It asks what happens when a tool has to survive procurement, culture, training, installation, sales, public investment, or a real customer environment. There is also a local and institutional layer, with RIoT’s nonprofit economic-development frame appearing in the show’s introductions and closings. The live-room moments give the conversations a civic texture. The virtual and studio episodes keep the tone practical. RIoT Underground works best when a listener wants the connective tissue around innovation: not only the invention, but the ecosystem that helps it become usable. It is a grounded guide to the business and community machinery behind IoT, AI, and adjacent emerging technologies.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants emerging technology discussed through products, organizations, partnerships, and economic development. It fits people interested in how AI, IoT, and deep tech move from idea to deployment.
What sets it apart: RIoT Underground stands apart by keeping hardware, data, startup support, education, and regional innovation in the same frame. Its conversations often treat technology as an ecosystem problem, not just a software or founder story.
Welcome to RIoT Underground — the podcast that pulls back the curtain on the innovators transforming our world with disruptive technology. We talk with fearless founders, tech leaders, and changemakers about their journeys — the wins, the failures, and everything in between. Discover how they learn from mistakes, build meaningful careers, and lead with purpose. Produced by RIoT Studios, part of the nonprofit RIoT, which drives innovation through events, conferences, startup accelerators, programs, thought leadership, and more. Tune in, subscribe, and join the underground at riot.org.
AI talk meets a set of calipers; your strategy deck may need a hardware appendix.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A live conversation about AI, industrial design, and why cheap objects can cost more than they save.
Industrial design gets a grounded AI-era defense in this live Riot Underground conversation, with the discipline framed as part art, part engineering, and part marketing.
A practical case for initiative, accountable AI use, and learning by doing.
Don Shin treats AI at work as less a technology story than a test of judgment. He is sharpest on the need to revise machine-made work, add a personal standard, and take responsibility for whatever finally gets used.
Ryan treats AI adoption as a culture question, where curiosity and time matter as much as the tools.
RIoT Underground follows Tom Snyder and Ryan in a live discussion about what AI is doing to the everyday work and culture of a software organization.
A live conversation on how deep-tech incubation turns long timelines into jobs, ROI, and regional growth.
Deep tech does not usually fit neatly inside an election-cycle timeline, and Riot Underground's live conversation with Krista Covey keeps that longer view in focus.
A practical review of computer vision, worker safety, and the partnerships needed to make deployment work.
Riot Underground keeps worker safety at the center of a grounded technology discussion, following how SAS uses computer vision with existing video management systems to make monitoring more proactive.
Industrial tech builders, pressed on how it works.
Conversations with the people wiring everyday objects to the cloud.
Specialists walking through software's tradeoffs, one system at a time.
Founders and engineers on AI coding agents like Claude Code, and supply chain security.
RIoT Underground talks with Mike Laut of Laut Design about industrial design, AI, and why his firm says it had its best year ever while AI was supposed to "steal our lunch money." The host says he is a mechanical engineer with a love of hardware, and Mike says industrial design blends art, engineering, and marketing from a 22-person practice that started in a crappy NC State apartment and a two-car garage.
["RIoT Underground's live Raleigh Founded recording with Don Shin, founder and CEO of CrossCom, opens with a casting question that leads him to say Christopher Reeve and Superman shaped his early sense of heroism.", "Shin says CrossCom started about 27 years ago in a Duke University dorm building websites on Netscape, then moved through mobile apps, AR/VR, edge computing, IoT, and LLM-powered features.", "He argues that AI is 'almost like the end game of custom software development' because website work became commoditized, and he says every serious business he meets is already treating AI as unavoidable.", "The discussion turns practical on adoption, with Shin saying leadership must become fluent in AI, prompt engineering is becoming baseline literacy, and AI agents should first remove repetitive office work."]
Ryan Abel tells Tom Snyder that AI is still in "infancy," while current tools like Cursor, Figma, and meeting capture mostly improve speed rather than replace judgment.
RIoT Underground's live episode features Krista Covey, president and CEO of First Flight Venture Center, on deep tech, AI, and startup funding in North Carolina.
Bobby Skolnikoff of SAS says computer vision and existing security cameras can catch lockout/tagout violations before a conveyor belt injures a worker.
An interview with Brian Bielewski, VP of Sales at CalChip Connect, discussing IoT distribution and the company's evolution.
Host Tom Snyder interviews Katie Gales, Director of Entrepreneurship at Wake Tech, about her work and a fun casting question.
Host Tom Snyder interviews the founders of the D.C.
Host Tom Snyder interviews Kurt Merriweather about the intersection of technology, innovation, and equity, starting with a fun casting question.
Host Tom Snyder interviews founders of two tech startups, Slider and TrackIt, about their innovative products and entrepreneurial journeys.
Host Tom Snyder interviews Nicole Raimondo, CIO of the Town of Cary, about their journey in adopting smart city technology and improving municipal services.
Host Tom Snyder interviews Scott Wingo, founder and CEO of Spiffy, about his entrepreneurial journey and disruptive technology.
Host Tom Snyder interviews Jess George, Government and Community Affairs Manager at Google Fiber, about her work and the impact of disruptive technology.