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17 Oct 2018
Artificial intelligence: How are you preparing?
Artificial intelligence is a term that has moved from fiction into fact, but what does it really mean for organisations now?
Join us as we look underneath the hype to discover exactly what AI is and how businesses can prepare themselves for it now.
In this workshop, you will hear from industry experts, startups, and other member organisations from their perspective. Regardless of your level of expertise and the nature of your work, what you will take from the day can go to your organisation to be actioned immediately.
Why attend?
- Gain a sense of what's real and what's hype, so you know what to watch for as the future unfolds
- Learn from other organisations how they are making their preparations for AI, such as through machine learning projects
- Hear how you can make your data AI-friendly
- Understand what the essential planning steps for working with startups are, including how to avoid common areas of friction
- Take away a conceptual framework with definitions you can use to explain AI to non-technical people in your organisations
- Get an overview of a framework for managing AI projects
- Anyone with an interest in the current practical applications of AI
- Members looking to get their organisation in the best possible position to take advantage of what AI can offer
- Those about to embark on an AI project looking to avoid classic mistakes and errors
- Members from organisations that have faced difficultly implementing their AI projects
- Anybody who is looking to build on their first AI project to ensure continued success
David Moloney, Director - Innovation and Transformation, PwC
What is AI and why should we care?Like "cyber" and "cloud", the term "AI" has moved from the technical domain into the mainstream, and it's important to understand what's reality and what's hype. This talk will introduce the day and provide working definitions that are technically robust yet executive-friendly.
Responsible AI
Now that we've seen the potential AI has in our businesses, it's important to take a balanced view going forward. David will highlight some of the risks, touching on how IT and cyber risk management might need to change as AI comes into the organisation, and talk about the work PwC is doing on #ResponsibleAI.
Rachel Prudden, Informatics Lab Scientist, Met Office
Applications of machine learning in scientific workflowsWith the practical application of AI becoming a reality, understanding machine learning is crucial.
The Met Office runs one of the largest supercomputers in Europe, which is used to run simulations producing terabytes of data each day. This data is used to inform decisions across the country. This talk will discuss the role of machine learning in this environment: where could it add value? what are the challenges to implementation? and, how can data-driven approaches be used to complement scientific insight?
Joe Scarboro, COO, The Bot Platform and Founder, Touchpaper.org
Working with startups: Practical tips from the front lineJoe will briefly take us through the findings of the Touchpaper.org research, including common pitfalls of startup-corporate collaborations (and how to avoid them) and also how to plan your startup engagement for optimal success. There will then be an opportunity to share challenges and explore potential solutions, based on the research and Joe's real-life experience. Joe will also talk on the importance of understanding your organisation's approach to innovation.
Peter Crocker, CTO, Oxford Semantic Technologies
Using semantic technology to combine, model and answer questions with dataBig data technologies have made significant progress in addressing problems related to the volume and velocity of data, but they are less effective at dealing with data variety and heterogeneity; this so-called “data variety challenge” is the main barrier to effective data access in many industry applications. The semantic technology addresses this challenge, modelling the data to give it meaning and dynamical integrating multiple sources into one location. Powerful query processing systems combine information from the model and knowledge from the business expertise to then answer the burning questions within the business. In this talk, Peter will introduce semantic technology, explain how it works, and illustrate how the technology behind Oxford Semantic Technologies is being used in industry.
Speakers
David Moloney
Director - Innovation and Transformation, PwC
Summary
David helps organisations navigate disruptive technology, particularly artificial intelligence and blockchain. As a technologist, he has always helped match technical capability for business need. Prior to being a disruptor, he was a cyber research director, and before that a forensic technologist.
Rachel Prudden
Informatics Lab Scientist, Met Office
Summary
Rachel is a scientist working in the Met Office Informatics Lab, a team who combine science, technology and design to make environmental data useful. Her research focus is using machine learning and spatial statistics to solve problems in convective-scale weather forecasting. A mathematician by training, she enjoys searching for general principles within the noise of real data.
Joe Scarboro
COO, The Bot Platform and Founder, Touchpaper.org
Summary
Joe has a varied background including being the CFO of a group of oil companies and extensive experience supporting, mentoring and launching startups in London. In addition to this, he has run a number of innovation initiatives for large organisations such as Lloyds Bank, Unilever and Aviva. His current role as COO at The Bot Platform, a communication automation company and in June 2017 Joe launched Touchpaper.org which drew from its research to produce a free toolkit for both startups and corporates, helping make it much easier for them to work together.
Peter Crocker
CTO, Oxford Semantic Technologies
Summary
Former Program Director at IBM for Watson IoT Platform Product Management (a cloud based internet of things start-up within IBM). 20 years experience in development, architecture, consultancy and technical sales, building software and solutions for enterprise clients worldwide.