On June 3, Socotra brought the insurance and technology communities together for PlatForum 2025—an afternoon of bold ideas, practical insights, and open discussion about what’s next in insurance core technology.
Held at the trendy Ink 48 Hotel in New York City, just ahead of Insurtech Insights USA, PlatForum packed the house—literally. Socotra had the seats full and people standing. The turnout and energy made one thing clear: the industry is hungry for better technology and more innovative ways to use it.
In partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), PlatForum welcomed insurance leaders, product builders, and investors for fast-paced sessions on UI, data strategy, cloud innovations, and commercial insurance. Of course, AI was a recurring thread as well.
Socotra was proud to welcome two of our clients—Adrian Copland, COO of Ledgebrook Insurance, and Dave Stanard, President of THREE Insurance—as featured speakers during the event.
PlatForum Sessions
Decoupling UI and Core
Socotra CEO Dan Woods provided insight on the differences between core technology and user interfaces (UI), discussing the various approaches to UIs, and how a one-size-fits-all strategy doesn’t work. Dan also shared how Socotra supports all UI approaches:
Productized UIs Reference implementations (powered by UI SDK) AI-generated UIs (powered by UI SDK) Low-Code / No-Code UIs 3rd Party UIs Legacy UIs Custom UIs Headless Operation (i.e. No UI at All!)
Lastly, Dan revealed many of Socotra’s achievements in AI, and discussed how AI will enhance UI strategy around the insurance industry.
Read the Socotra blog post on modern approaches to user interfaces.
Data Strategy Is No Longer Optional 
Socotra COO Ekine Akuiyibo presented the best practices for building a modern data strategy in insurance.
Make Data Accessible: Real-time access through APIs, event stream, and direct queries
Make Data Available: Secure, resilient, and scalable by default
Make Data High-Quality: Structured, trusted, and usable across systems
Ekine argued that these are the three components of data fluency, and described in detail what it means to achieve each of them.
This presentation was a sneak preview of an upcoming Socotra blog post on data fluency.
Insurance IT Is at a Turning Point 
Ekine Akuiyibo also moderated an insightful panel on insurance IT trends where he was joined by:
Terry Buechner, Global Insurance Core Systems Lead at AWS David Castellani, Operating Partner at Brewer Lane Ventures, and former Senior Vice President and Business Information Officer at New York Life Jeff Goldberg, Founder of Goldberg Strategies, and former Head of Insurance at Datos Insights
The panelists discussed the opportunities and realities of AI within insurance, as well as the disconnect between legacy tech stacks and modern ambitions. A clear message emerged: insurers can’t bolt AI onto bad core architecture. If an insurer’s core can’t scale, upgrade without disruption, or expose real-time data, it’s not ready for what’s next—especially AI.
Cloud Without Compromises
Socotra Implementation Director Todd Kobriger led an informative session on what makes a mature cloud platform. Hint: it’s not just renting a server in someone else’s data center. Socotra delivers true cloud-native capabilities—like auto-scaling, zero-downtime upgrades, and the industry’s leading uptime metrics—by design, not afterthought.
Read Socotra’s blog post on the legacy cloud epidemic.
A Fireside Chat with Tech-Driven Insurers
Socotra Head of Global Partnerships, Greg Murphy, had a candid conversation with Adrian Copland, COO of Ledgebrook Insurance, and Dave Stanard, President of THREE Insurance, two leaders building modern insurers from the ground up. Their advice? Invest in speed, flexibility, and partners who don’t slow you down. That’s why both companies choose Socotra.
Read Socotra’s case study on Ledgebrook.
Commercial Insurance Needs Core Innovation
Commercial lines aren’t just complex—they’re varied, collaborative, and constantly evolving. In a case study session, Jeff Goldberg and Todd Kobriger walked the biggest challenges of commercial insurers and addressed how Socotra solves them:
Massive schedules of items: Upload and quote 100K+ scheduled items Highly tailored products: Launch any product, challenge, or geography using Socotra’s flexible data model Underwriter-intermediary collaboration: Get rich functionality and user interfaces to enhance collaboration
After PlatForum wrapped, Socotra kept the conversations going over food and drinks with Insurtech on Tap, co-hosted with ManageMy. Attendees included insurance executives, technologists, and investors—all ready to build something better.
The next Insurtech on Tap event is at ITC Vegas on Oct 14.
Thank You
To everyone who joined the events—thank you for making PlatForum 2025 a packed, powerful, and practical event. Until then, Socotra is grateful to be building the future of insurance alongside insurers. We’ll see all of you at PlatForum 2026 on June 2 in New York!
About Ekine Akuiyibo
Ekine Akuiyibo is the Chief Operating Officer at Socotra, where he oversees field engineering, product delivery, partnerships, training, and support. Prior to Socotra, Ekine spent 15 years in enterprise software development, sales, and services at Sun Microsystems, BAE Systems, and Oracle. Most recently, Ekine worked on large-scale ML problems at Oracle. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford.
