Inspiring Computing

Hosted by Gareth Thomas

Technology Science EducationInterviews guests

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Latest episode

Feb 2025

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EN-US

About the show

The Inspiring Computing podcast is where computing meets the real world. This podcast aims to trigger your curiosity by talking to proficient and advanced users of MATLAB, Python, Julia who use these tools to deepen their understanding of the world, simulate, explore trade-offs and gain insights that help companies add more value. In addition to proficient users we will also talk with the product marketing, toolbox authors, package developers and library maintainers to see what drives the development and what issues they are solving for others to benefit from.

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27 recent

February 27, 2025Episode 2655 min

The Rise of Narwhals in Open-Source

In this episode of Inspiring Computing, Marco Gorelli discusses the unexpected success of Narwhals, a highly downloaded and extremely lightweight and extensible compatibility layer between data frame libraries such as pandas and polars. We dive into Marco's inspiring journey from a mathematics background to becoming a key contributor in the open-source community. Marco shares his initial struggles, motivations, and the eventual widespread adoption of narwhals. The conversation goes into the technical underpinnings of his project, from the importance of typing to robust testing techniques. He highlights collaborations, testing practices, and the challenges of maintaining backward compatibility. This episode is both a technical deep dive and an inspiring story of persevering through challenges and negativity to make a substantial impact in the open source ecosystem.Here are a few links: Quansight YouTube Channel to see Marco coding live.Narwal discordSupport the showSubscribe to mailing list here.

February 20, 2025Episode 251 hr 23 min

Exploring stdlib: JavaScript's Answer to Technical Computing

This episode of Inspiring Computing features a discussion with Athan, the maintainer of stdlib, a JavaScript library designed for numerical and scientific computing. Athan shares his experience and his career journey, starting from a non-computer science background through his PhD program at Oxford and eventually leading to his passion for open-source development.He explains the unique benefits and challenges of building scientific computing tools for the web, emphasizing the powerful capabilities of JavaScript when written correctly. Athan also discusses the importance of standardizing arrays, the evolution of web technologies, and the collaborative efforts required to make projects such as stdlib.io successful.This episode highlights industry use cases, potential applications, and the ongoing efforts to attract contributors and to fund open-source initiatives. For the curious here is the GitHub repo.Support the showSubscribe to mailing list here.

December 9, 2024Episode 241 hr 4 min

Unlocking Sensor Fusion: From Academia to Real-World Applications

In this episode of the Inspiring Computing podcast, Marcus shares his fascinating journey from growing up in Fortaleza, Brazil, to becoming a notable figure in the tech industry in the Netherlands. He discusses his academic background, including his master's and Ph.D. work on sensor fusion and robotics, and how he learned the vital importance of integrating various technologies like MATLAB, Python, and C++ for different applications. Marcus also recounts the challenges and successes in launching his own startup focused on LIDAR technology and explains his motivations for creating a YouTube channel to teach others about Practical Software development. The conversation covers crucial topics such as the use of ROS (Robot Operating System), the complexities of real-world testing, and the significance of respecting language diversity and multidisciplinary collaboration in tech projects.Support the showSubscribe to mailing list here.

December 6, 2024Episode 2358 min

Chasing Transparency: The CodeGlass Chronicles

In this episode, we sit down with Tyrone from CodeGlass who shares his inspiring journey from an inquisitive 11-year-old, fascinated by computer games to founding a company that aims to revolutionize how developers troubleshoot and optimize code. We discuss the unique features of CodeGlass, which include real-time profiling across multiple programming languages, without needing changes to your source code. Tyrone delves into the technical challenges and breakthroughs achieved by his company, such as achieving 10 million operations per second and accurate memory profiling.He also shares insights into his entrepreneurial journey, the challenges of gaining trust in a tool, and the support he received from the academic and startup ecosystems. Support the showSubscribe to mailing list here.

November 26, 2024Episode 2225 min

Navigating Domains: Jousef's Journey from CFD to Marketing Mastery

In this episode of The Inspiring Computing podcast, Gareth interviews Jousef Murad, a successful podcaster, YouTuber, and founder of Apex Consulting. Jousef shares his journey from studying structural mechanics and computational fluid dynamics in Germany, to working with startups in Europe, and eventually creating a consultancy focusing on tech and SaaS marketing. The conversation dives into his use of MATLAB and Python, the importance of failing fast, the nuances of marketing in technical domains, and the continuous learning required in this ever-evolving field. Jousef emphasizes the value of being a generalist and staying humble. They also discuss the challenging but vital role of CFD engineers.Support the showSubscribe to mailing list here.

November 5, 2024Episode 2147 min

MicroPython in Orbit: Filip's Story of Satellite Innovation

In this episode of Inspiring Computing, I chat with Filip Rak, the team leader at the Czech Aerospace Research Center. Filip tells me about his journey from engineering to leading the development of attitude and orbit control systems for satellites. We talk about the technical challenges and triumphs, like launching satellites and using MATLAB and MicroPython. Filip also shares how they took a selfie from space at their facility and how this achievement inspired future projects. He also talks about the complexity of late attitude control, using cube sats with limited resources, and their agile risk tolerance approach. The conversation highlights how advanced computing is used in aerospace and emphasizes the importance of balancing innovation with practical constraints.Support the showSubscribe to mailing list here.

October 15, 2024Episode 2041 min

Mastering Movement: Calculating Tram Motion Envelopes

In this episode, we go deep into the tram manufacturing business with Robert Grepl more specifically, what does it take to be able to create a tram that does not crash into any infrastructure in an existing city? Have you ever wondered why there's only a couple of centimeters between the tram and the infrastructure? How do tram manufacturers and cities, figure out which obstacles to avoid, and what infrastructure needs to be built or avoided when a tram has put you into a cityRobert explains from the beginning where trams manufacturers in cities make decisions what the common tools they use and how his company, which created a simulation engine called TRAMotion helps solve this problem.Support the showSubscribe to mailing list here.

October 8, 2024Episode 1957 min

Voice AI Unleashed: A Deep Dive into Callr.AI

In this episode of inspiring computing, Max shares, how he created Callr.ai an AI caller agent called Julia, and how Julia can be integrated into phone agents, transforming people's businesses, around a practical use case of AI. Not only does Julia schedule appointments and potentially replace that first line of phone calls but could be also integrated into CRMs and completely transform the way that cells and or internal requests services, HR processes are done.Support the showSubscribe to mailing list here.

October 1, 2024Episode 1844 min

An insider’s view on the heart of NumPy: a conversation with Ralf Gommers

In this episode, I have a wonderful conversation with Ralf Gommers, a director of Quansight Labs, and he's a key contributor to NumPy. He shares his journey of how he started working on and contributing to several open source projects. But more importantly, the journey that he took inside NumPy. NumPy is a project that most scientific computing projects rely on heavily. Ralf shares the thought behind its governance model, the importance of having community funding models, and how to maintain long term open-source projects.Support the showSubscribe to mailing list here.

September 24, 2024Episode 171 hr 7 min

Navigating Open Source in the AI Era: A Conversation with Juan Luis

In this episode, we explore the journey of Juan Luis an aerospace engineer turned data scientist who now works at QuantumBlack, part of McKinsey. Starting with a background in aerospace engineering, he transitioned from using proprietary software like Mathematica to open-source tools, ultimately becoming an influential figure in the Python community. As a co-founder of PyData Spain and organizer of PyCon Spain, he has made significant contributions to the open-source ecosystem. Currently, he’s working on Kedro, an open-source data science and engineering library. The episode delves into his thoughts on the role of generative AI in the industry, Kedro’s approach to modularity, and the importance of community and open-source collaboration.Support the showSubscribe to mailing list here.