How Artificial Intelligence disrupts Industries

Posted May 28, 2017

In a recent post about Deep Learning applications, platforms, limitations and quantum computing we have announced a panel discussion on “How Artificial Intelligence is disrupting Industries” which took place on 25 May 2017 in Cape Town. This event was hosted by Far Ventures, a start-up studio and incubator that aims to foster technology entrepreneurship in Africa by founding and growing start-ups that can positively impact people’s lives through technology. It was also supported by the Machine Intelligence Institute of Africa (MIIA), an innovative community and accelerator for Machine Intelligence and Data Science Research and Applications to help transform Africa.

For this panel discussion, Romain Diaz (Co-Founder & CEO at Far Ventures Global) acted as moderator with the following experienced professionals in the AI industry as speakers and panelists:

Dr Jacques Ludik, Founder & President of the Machine Intelligence Institute of Africa (MIIA) / Founder & CEO, Cortex Logic / Founder & CTO, Bennit.AI
Antoine Paillusseau, Co-Founder, FinChatBot
Alex Conway, Founder & CTO, NumberBoost
Ryan Falkenberg, Co-CEO, Clevva
Frans Cronje, Managing Director, DataProphet

This post includes the links to the introductory presentation as well as the video of the panel discussion.

Presentation – AI within the Smart Technology Era – Dr Jacques Ludik
Video Part 1 – Presentation and Panel discussion
Video Part 2 – Panel discussion (continued)

The following questions were specifically addressed in the panel discussion:

Is AI a real thing? Is companies really doing AI? Is AI overhyped?
Let’s dig deeper into AI business applications. What are they? What impact does AI have on industries?
What’s going to happen with predictive analytics companies given the AI shift across industries and what major tech companies are doing in this space?
Leaders & Innovation: (a) Who is the leaders in AI? Who is driving innovation? Can innovation also come from others? (b) Which AI technologies are you currently using?
Ethics: Give examples of AI when it comes the ethics?
Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of AI? Why are you optimistic about the future of AI?
What is the current maturity of AI and its impact on society?
Are developers going to become the equivalent of typists? What kind of jobs will be left to do?
How will AI impact the Healthcare industry in the future?
Safety & Discrimination: (a) Safety: e.g. Self-driving cars. How are we going to make sure that AI can be used in a safe way? (b) How are we going to avoid discrimination using AI-based algorithms?

Far Ventures – How Artificial Intelligence is disrupting industries – Part 1

[0:00] Introduction
[3:46] AI within the Smart Technology Era – Dr Jacques Ludik
[15:47] AI panel discussion
[16:00] Is AI a real thing? Is companies really doing AI? Is AI overhyped?
[24:36] Let’s dig deeper into AI business applications. What are they? What impact does AI have on industries?
[39:15] What’s going to happen with predictive analytics companies given the AI shift across industries and what major tech companies are doing in this space?
[49:39] Leaders & Innovation: (a) Who is the leaders in AI? Who is driving innovation? Can innovation also come from others? (b) Which AI technologies are you currently using?
[1:00:16] Ethics: Give examples of AI when it comes the ethics?
[1:04:25] Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of AI? Why are you optimistic about the future of AI? (to be continued in Part 2)

Far Ventures – How Artificial Intelligence is disrupting industries – Part 2

[0:00] Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of AI? Why are you optimistic about the future of AI?
[2:50] What is the current maturity of AI and its impact on society?
[5:35] Are developers going to become the equivalent of typists? What kind of jobs will be left to do?
[11:17] How will AI impact the Healthcare industry in the future?
[16:20] Safety & Discrimination: (a) Safety: e.g. Self-driving cars. How are we going to make sure that AI can be used in a safe way? (b) How are we going to avoid discrimination using AI-based algorithms?

Machine Intelligence Institute of Africa (MIIA)

MIIA Meetup in Cape Town on Wednesday 21 June 2017

Real-world Machine Learning Applications in Security and Mining Industries

Sponsors: Cortex Logic and Barclays Rise Cape Town

Venue: Barclays Rise, 5th Floor, Woodstock Exchange

MIIA Meetup Agenda

Introduction and quick MIIA update – Dr Jacques Ludik
- Presentation
DeepAlert: Realtime Video Analytics and Alerting using Deep Learning, Dr Jasper Horrell, Founder & CEO, DeepData
- Presentation
Using CNNs with transfer learning to train deep networks, Shaun Irwin, M.Eng, Lead Developer, Stone Three Mining Solutions
- Presentation

Video: https://youtu.be/vnNylVqN4qg

Photos: Facebook; Meetup

Registration: https://www.meetup.com/Machine-Intelligence-Institute-of-Africa/events/240319413/

MIIA Meetup in Sandton on Thursday 11 May 2017

Agenda

1. Deep Learning and its applications – Dr Jacques Ludik – MIIA, Cortex Logic, Bennit.AI

Presentation

2. Demonstration of Deep Learning examples using Google’s TensorFlow – Dr Jacques Ludik – MIIA, Cortex Logic, Bennit.AI

3. IBM Watson

– Insights from IBM’s InterConnect Conference in Las Vegas – Rikus Combrinck, Senior Data Scientist at OLSPS Analytics (M.Eng Computer Engineering)

https://hackmd.io/s/SJr4CR-e- (document format)
https://hackmd.io/p/SJr4CR-e- (slide format)

– IBM Watson discussion (including sharing experience with IBM Watson for developing Intelligent Virtual Assistants)

4. Demonstration of a state-of-the-art AI conversational system – Rikus Combrinck, Senior Data Scientist at OLSPS Analytics (M.Eng Computer Engineering)

https://hackmd.io/s/r1XJkBmy- (document format)
https://hackmd.io/p/r1XJkBmy- (slide format)

Registration: https://www.meetup.com/Machine-Intelligence-Institute-of-Africa-Jhb-Pta/events/239078147/

Venue: Equinox, 15 Alice Lane, Absa Capital, North Building, Sandton, Gauteng, South Africa

Sponsors: Barclays Equinox Events, Cortex Logic

Videos:

Photos of the MIIA event can be found here.

MIIA Meetup in Cape Town on Wednesday 3 May 2017

Agenda

1. Deep Learning and its applications – Dr Jacques Ludik – MIIA, Cortex Logic, Bennit.AI

Presentation

2. Demonstration of Deep Learning examples using Google’s TensorFlow – Dr Jacques Ludik – MIIA, Cortex Logic, Bennit.AI

Google TensorFlow

Getting started with Tensorflow https://www.tensorflow.org/get_started/get_started https://www.tensorflow.org/tutorials
Learn TensorFlow and deep learning, without a Ph.D. https://cloud.google.com/blog/big-data/2017/01/learn-tensorflow-and-deep-learning-without-a-phd
TensorFlow examples https://github.com/aymericdamien/TensorFlow-Examples (MNIST)
Introduction to Deep Neural Networks with Keras and Tensorflow https://github.com/leriomaggio/deep-learning-keras-tensorflow
Keras examples https://github.com/fchollet/keras/tree/master/examples (MNIST)
Tensorboard https://github.com/llSourcell/how_to_use_tensorboard_live
Tensorflow Playground http://playground.tensorflow.org
Convolution Neural Networks http://scs.ryerson.ca/~aharley/vis/conv/flat.html https://ujjwalkarn.me/2016/08/11/intuitive-explanation-convnets/https://adeshpande3.github.io/adeshpande3.github.io/A-Beginner%27s-Guide-To-Understanding-Convolutional-Neural-Networks/
Deep Reinforcement Learning Flappy Bird – Deep Reinforcement Learning (Deep Q-Network) https://github.com/yenchenlin/DeepLearningFlappyBird

3. IBM Watson

– Insights from IBM’s InterConnect Conference in Las Vegas – Rikus Combrinck, Senior Data Scientist at OLSPS Analytics (M.Eng Computer Engineering)

https://hackmd.io/s/rJhIJBXk- (document format)
https://hackmd.io/p/rJhIJBXk- (slide format)

– IBM Watson discussion (including sharing experience with IBM Watson for developing Intelligent Virtual Assistants)

4. Demonstration of a state-of-the-art AI conversational system – Rikus Combrinck, Senior Data Scientist at OLSPS Analytics (M.Eng Computer Engineering)

https://hackmd.io/s/r1XJkBmy- (document format)
https://hackmd.io/p/r1XJkBmy- (slide format)

Registration via the MIIA Meetup – Cape Town:

https://www.meetup.com/Machine-Intelligence-Institute-of-Africa/events/239077538/

Venue: CiTi, Bandwidth Barn, Block B, 3rd Floor, Woodstock Exchange, 66-68 Albert Road, Woodstock, Cape Town, South Africa

Sponsors: CiTi, Cortex Logic

Videos:

Photos of the MIIA event can be found here.

MIIA AI / Data Science Hackathon – July-September 2017

MIIA also plans to host an AI / Data Science Hackathon during July-September 2017 period. Anyone interested to participate is welcome to email us at info@machineintelligenceafrica.org. More about this event in follow-up communication.

Deep Learning Indaba in Johannesburg – 11-15 September 2017

http://www.deeplearningindaba.com/

http://www.deeplearningindaba.com/apply.html

Key Dates:

Applications: 17 April – 31 May 2017
Acceptance notification: 15 June 2017
Registration opens: 15 June 2017

ABOUT MACHINE INTELLIGENCE INSTITUTE OF AFRICA

Machine intelligence Institute of Africa (MIIA):

http://machineintelligenceafrica.org
Community: http://machineintelligenceafrica.org/members/
Events: http://machineintelligenceafrica.org/activities/events/
Projects: http://machineintelligenceafrica.org/activities/projects/
Partners: http://machineintelligenceafrica.org/partners/
Blog: http://machineintelligenceafrica.org/blog/
MIIA YouTube Channel (Playlist): http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOqigXLyHjNYf8R4WIM7HMVbQpQ03QNu-

Some Recent MIIA posts

Joining Machine Intelligence Institute of Africa (MIIA)

Anyone interested to join MIIA and/or participate in using smart technologies to help address African problems such as those in education, finance, healthcare, energy, agriculture and unemployment is welcome to do this here. See How to participate for more details on various ways to help MIIA execute its mission.
View the current MIIA Community on the MIIA website as well as MIIA communications on Slack, the LinkedIn group, Meetup, Google+, FaceBook, and Twitter.
MIIA Meetup in Cape Town: https://www.meetup.com/Machine-Intelligence-Institute-of-Africa/
MIIA Meetup in Johannesburg/Pretoria: https://www.meetup.com/Machine-Intelligence-Institute-of-Africa-Jhb-Pta/

Bennit.AI

http://bennit.ai/
Bennit.AI is a self-learning, highly personalized virtual production assistant specifically designed for industry, making the time and efficiency of industrial users its most important mission, every minute of every day. Bennit A.I. layers across existing technologies to drastically simplify and improve access to information, helping industrial users make better decisions and improve business outcomes.

Cortex Logic

http://cortexlogic.com/
Cortex Logic is a machine intelligence software & solutions company that solves real-world problems through delivering state-of-the-art Machine Intelligence based solutions such as intelligent virtual assistants and advisors, fraud detection, churn prediction, smart risk scoring, smart trading, real-time customer insights, smart recommendations and purchase prediction, and smart payment for finance, healthcare, education, retail, telecoms, industrial and public sector as well as other industries where the automation of tasks can lead to economic benefit, scalability and productivity. Cortex Logic helps businesses and organizations not only survive, but thrive in the Smart Technology Era. It also aims to contribute towards solving intelligence through advancing the state-of-the-art in machine intelligence and building cognitive systems that are contextually aware, learn at scale, support unsupervised learning where possible, reason with purpose and interact with humans naturally.

Machine Intelligence Institute of Africa, MIIA

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