In anticipation of the exciting new things Junari are currently working on, what better time is there to get to know the team? For the fifth in our series of monthly interviews, I spoke with Daniel Butler, software developer at Junari.
I know you travel quite often, and you recently came back from a trip to Morocco, in what ways do the experiences you gain while travelling shape your life?
I’ve been travelling since I was a kid, my parents always took me places and it’s always been a tremendous thing to see different cultures and how they live differently to us. How the UK works isn’t necessarily how the world works, and how we live isn’t necessarily the correct way, even though we’re often told it is. But in reality other people are living in different ways all over the world. And it’s good to see that actually happening and how different economies work- it’s just always good to meet different people around the world and chat to them.
When was the first time you did skydiving and what made you decide to get into it?
Funny question, I first properly saw skydiving on I’m a celebrity- probably when I was like ten. They used to do the Jump into the Jungle and that made me really wanna do it. When I was 16 or 17 my mum bought me a tandem skydive and I really enjoyed that; and then when I got to university I found out there was a skydiving club. I went to the initial presentation, joined up and got my licence. Then, in my second year of uni I was treasurer of the club, and in my third year of uni I was the president of the club. So that was quite a good experience as well, just learning about clubs and societies and organising people.
How do you feel artificial intelligence could help out businesses in future?
So artificial intelligence is expanding rapidly, and it’s sort of learning by itself, if you wanna put it like that. Obviously humans only have a certain amount of output and time, whereas artificial intelligence could have unlimited time the faster it grows, and it could enable our business to more efficiently help customers with all their different processes.
What are your opinions on NFTs?
The current state of NFTS- I think 95% of the current projects are not going to exist within 5 to 10 years, but the actual building blocks behind what those projects are doing will. Because they’re looking at how to build an NFT and what other people have done, and they’re expanding on that for their new projects. 10 years down the line we’ll have more built blockchain technology to do useful things, off the back of NFTs. You can sort of compare it to smartphones. Back in the 90s they were massive brick phones, people were a bit wary of them, but because of how they evolved, people started catching on to it and in the end we got a really good piece of technology out of it.
Some would argue that technology has stopped human evolution as tech becomes an extension of ourselves, what are your thoughts about this?
So I would disagree with this. Humans will probably evolve with technology, due to all the medical technology that is slowly becoming available because of AI. I know Meta and Facebook are working on mapping the brain, and mapping each electrode within your brain from this we’ll know how to control our brains more. Technology could rapidly enhance the cure for cancer, or help us understand our brains and bodies better. Technology is obviously gonna speed up human evolution even more.
What developments in technology do you find most exciting?
Currently AI and blockchain technologies, because it does seem like that’s gonna be a future.
How has working at Junari expanded your knowledge about software development?
So prior to Junari I hadn’t used the Agile process, so Junari’s really helped me understand the Agile process. Previously I’ve used the waterfall method- where you do the spec and then give it to the customer, and if anythings wrong you’ve got to deal with that afterwards. Whereas with the agile process you figure out the stuff that’s going wrong in between, and then they get the product they want instead of a final product that doesn’t quite fit their needs. Also, just having Russ around with the excellent amounts of knowledge that he has, being able to ask him questions and ask for guidance. To learn from someone with vast amounts of knowledge in a field is a really good thing.
Thanks for chatting Dan. Next interview: Joshua Sleigh!
Interview by Alana Samuel, digital marketer at Junari