Alexa Champions

Joel Evans has always been fascinated by the power of emerging technology and has been fortunate to make a career out of helping companies apply cutting-edge technology to solve real business problems. In the mid-90s, Joel founded Geek.com as a way to share his passion for technology with the world. He then leveraged that passion into a career where he was known as the “Chief Geek”, was one of the co-founders and de facto Innovation Evangelist at Mobiquity, Inc., a digital solutions provider, and is now leveraging the power of voice as the co-founder and co-CEO of n-Powered, LLC, a company applying conversational UI to higher ed to help universities solve challenges along the student journey.

Even back in the 90s, when mobile was considered emerging, Joel wrote about the power of voice after consulting in Microsoft’s Windows Mobile division’s early days. At the time, Joel would hack together different technologies to automate his home and would even dictate to his computer to trigger local hardware responses.

When Joel received an email in 2014 letting him know he could be one of the first to get an Echo, Amazon’s voice-controlled device, he jumped at the chance. He quickly realized that not only could it play music via voice control and answer questions but could also be used as a virtual assistant.

With an Alexa-enabled device in almost every room of his home, a Raspberry Pi running Alexa’s Voice Service, and Alexa in his car, Joel regularly composes skills for demonstrations at meet-ups, client meetings, and presentations. His company, n-Powered, LLC, has already transformed the student experience by leveraging Voice technology at three major universities since March 2018, with more coming online every month.

If you want to talk about Alexa skills, emerging tech, mobile, or business transformation leveraging the latest technologies such as HoloLens, IoT, and chatbots, give him a ping.

• Lizard Spock: A simple game skill: "Scissors cuts paper; Paper covers rock; Rock crushes lizard; Lizard poisons Spock; Spock smashes scissors; Scissors decapitates lizard; Lizard eats paper; Paper disproves Spock; Spock vaporizes rock; And as it always has- Rock crushes scissors."
• Ask Purina: Whether you’re a dog owner or enthusiast, simply Ask Purina to find the dog breed information you need to choose the perfect companion for your lifestyle.
• Babycenter - My Pregnancy for Babycenter: Count down to your delivery date with My Pregnancy and get weekly, medically-reviewed updates about how your baby and body are changing from BabyCenter, the world’s leading online pregnancy and parenting resource, trusted by over 300 million moms.
• Nestle GoodNes: Use your kitchen’s Amazon Echo™ or other Alexa device to cook some delicious, simple recipes. You’ll find it fun and easy to browse, select and navigate recipe steps with GoodNes™.