An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Disruption is always painful, and always carries both positive and negative aspects. But do the positive long-term benefits to society outweigh the short-term pain from the distribution itself?
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ricardo Amper, CEO and Founder, Incode Technologies
Ricardo Amper is the founder and CEO of Incode Technologies, started in 2015 in San Francisco with a vision to transform the digital identity marketplace and the ways humans experience their identity journeys. By fueling digital trust in the identity ecosystem, Incode’s cutting-edge identity solutions are solving global security challenges and elevating human interactions with data, products, and services — at all levels.
A big data developer with a passion for technology, Ricardo has over 20 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur and founder of companies across multiple industries. Ricardo currently lives in San Francisco, from where he continues implementing Incode’s vision of One Identity Everywhere to facilitate people’s access to services, contribute to reducing inequalities within societies, and provide freedom, and opportunities for growth while preserving the fundamental right for users to control their identity information.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I started my entrepreneur journey early on. At 19 years old, before Facebook existed, I started a social media network company in Mexico called La Burbuja Networks.
In 2003 I co-founded Amco Foods, a functional beverage startup that was acquired by Bimbo Group, one of the biggest consumer goods companies in the world.
I also served as the CEO & CTO of my family’s business, Amco Group. It was a chemical distribution company that I later repositioned as the “Bloomberg of Aroma Chemicals”. We developed proprietary big data and machine learning systems as a competitive advantage and sold the company to the Brenntag Group.
I moved to the Bay Area in 2015 to start Incode. It began as a photo-sharing company, where we shared photos automatically with facial recognition and eventually pivoted to the identity industry. Today, Incode offers the world’s most advanced and accurate identity verification technology.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Most of our healthcare data depends on a piece of paper or plastic, that paper ID was an invention of Egyptians 3000 years old. Today, it’s often humans who verify us, but it’s nearly impossible for human beings to see if it’s a fake ID due to bias, fatigue, etc. So, we’re on a mission to eliminate those paper IDs and get verified automatically with AI. We make the verification processes much safer.
We are reinventing the way humans verify and authenticate their identity through a simple, secure, and fast AI-based platform to power a world of trust. We work with different industries such as government, financial, healthcare, travel & hospitality, and retail. We provide companies with innovative identity solutions that help them reduce fraud while providing users with a privacy centric experience.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
My father was my mentor until the day he died. At the age of 13 he introduced me to the business world. I learned a lot by sitting and listening in on every meeting he had. During high school, I worked for my father’s business. One of his greatest lessons was pushing me to trust myself more and to dare to dream big.
Now I have a mentor/coach who is based in Jerusalem. He is an Israeli rabbi, psychologist, and businessman who helps entrepreneurs. He is one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met in my life. Our sessions have made a huge impact, they have helped me align my purpose with my values.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
- Disruption is always painful, and always carries both positive and negative aspects. But do the positive long-term benefits to society outweigh the short-term pain from the distribution itself?
- The use of paper and other physical objects to establish identity has certainly withstood the test of time. The paper ID is an invention of Egyptians 3000 years old. Yet the mere perseverance of a way of doing things does not mean that it is the best way of doing things. As we move toward a digital society, is it truly beneficial to continuously verify our identity at every bank, hotel, hospital, and stadium?
- I believe that society will benefit by implementing one identity everywhere, in which a digital identity can be verified once and authenticated in multiple locations. The distribution from changing from physical, manual systems to digital, automated systems will support better scalability, improved accuracy, and a better protection of individual privacy.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
The book that I’ve found useful is called “Now Discover your Strengths” by Gallup. It’s an outstanding book that teaches you how to succeed using your most powerful talents. In life we are often taught to work on our weaknesses, but Gallup helps you understand why you should focus on your strengths instead.
It is a great business book; you will learn how to manage people with their natural talents and create a strengths-based culture. I’ve learned that the best performers focus on their strengths, which is why at Incode we encourage our employees to focus on their superpowers and strengths rather than their weaknesses.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“The limit is a decision.”
It means two things: First, you decide where your limit is in terms of where you want to go. Second, you decide where your limit is in terms of things you are or aren’t willing to do.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would be inclined to inspire people to think big, to not limit their dreams, to always strive for more.
How can our readers follow you online?
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amper/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/incode-technologies
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/incodetechnologies/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/incodetech/?hl=en
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/IncodeIdentity
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Meet The Disruptors: Ricardo Amper Of Incode On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
