The Upload Radio Show
Finally Released Now On Spotify and Apple Podcasts!
During the spring semester of my sophomore year of college at NYU Tandon, I worked with WNYU Radio to release a weekly podcast, The Upload with Michael Batavia, focused on the intersection of tech news and entrepreneurship. The podcast went live on air every other Wednesday at 8:30 PM ET and I even went live twice when producing it! It formed the basis for the publishing of my writing on this blog (this blog was originally supposed to highlight each episode of the show as they were published but as the show finished before I started writing here, this is more of a retrospective of the series).
In the podcast, my goal was two-fold. First, it was to interview students and professors, mostly focused at NYU but they could be from anywhere, who were working on a start-up or something new to add to the entrepreneurial mix that hadn’t been featured before. During Season 1 of the podcast, I interviewed Saketh Kesiraju, the founder of the company Augier, aiming to make collectible art on the blockchain and fully realized digital art galleries with Web3, NFTs and Three.js in an effort to revolutionize how art is sold post COVID-19. I also interviewed Aaditya Krishnamohan, the co-founder of Blockhouse Capital, to seek out his views regarding the latest expression in tech to move towards open-source and transparent code in order to check corporate corruption and to prevent the collapse of companies like FTX and the Silicon Valley Bank.
I later had an episode that featured the both of them to get their insights into why they dropped out of NYU to pursue their respective companies and how they found their niche in the world of increasingly fuller markets, especially with the general public skepticism towards cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. During the first half of 2023, I interviewed the staff of Los Altos Hacks in Sunnyvale, CA to hear about how the origin of their event and how they slowly grew and grew into the West Coast’s largest hackathon for seven years in a row! That was a fun trip and I even mentored the attendees during the two-day event.
My second goal was to remark on the latest technology news and its effect on the student population at NYU and in schools throughout the U.S. Also in Season 1, I interviewed Snigdha Roy, a AI safety student at UCLA and Atlas Fellow, to get her thoughts on Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and transformation into the X platform it is today as well as her thoughts on AI interpretability and the need to understand large language models like ChatGPT3 before they do accidental harm.
By far my proudest episode was when I interviewed Kevin Kosar, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former VP of Research Partnerships at the R Street Institute, to address the technology gap that members of Congress face when trying to regulate 21st century technology in both the House of Representatives and Senate. This question had always crossed my mind when watching the news and hearing of threats to regulate blockchain tech or harmful AI technology but to interview a prominent member in a think tank who wrote a 10 page paper discussing the subject was a big step up for the podcast. It was so important to me that I ended up publishing it on YouTube as a video feature for the podcast, something that didn’t end up happening for all episodes.
With its conclusion at two seasons and ultimate wrap-up critiquing new and upcoming technologies with a member of my ethics class (see here for the final essay I wrote for said class), what do I think of the podcast?
For one, it was great to get out of my comfort zone and talk to people who are innovating; I have taken two innovation classes so far (one at NYU Tandon and the other during my study abroad at Lund University) and the bridge between theory and practice is often hard to cross. As is often said, you have to take risks and not be afraid to fail. I still have yet to find a niche that I am undoubtably passionate about and will devote my time into but as soon as I find it, I will take the bounds that Saketh, Aaditya and other podcast guests have made and jump into the field of start-ups and starting my own business. Upon my return to NYU in Spring 2024, I might renew the podcast for a third season and continue talking to guests who are changing the tech and entrepreneurial scene one step at a time.
The Upload with Michael Batavia will be released weekly on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and everywhere you get your podcasts starting Christmas Day 2023. It’s my own Christmas gift to you! You can listen (and watch select episodes) with the link here.
The second episode is featured above if you want a listening sneak peak on what’s to come!
Let me know what you think of the podcast by leaving a comment below. I welcome feedback and look forward to hearing it upon a possible restart in the spring. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from The Upload!