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THE ROBOT REVOLUTION Robot: A Complement Or Substitute?
Solution Providers of 2020
AI 2.0 Artificial Intelligence 2.0: A Blend of Natural Intelligence and AI
Tim Grace | CEO
POINT PREDICTIVE Using A Unique Combination of Artificial And Natural Intelligence To Address Fraud Risks
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EDITOR’S LETTER
™ www.mirrorreview.com June 2020
AI: Transforming the World
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lthough COVID-19 has caused a lot of havoc all over the world, it has been rewarding for the digital world. The world has been now pushed towards accepting new norms such as social distancing and remote working. The concept of remote working or work from home has provided the digital world with numerous opportunities to grow and offer new services across the globe. AI has played a vital role in the digitalization of all the industries. It is considered as the leading factor in reconstructing the industries as a part of the fourth industrial revolution. Acknowledging the importance of AI in today times, the team of Mirror Review has come up with the latest magazine issue, “The 10 Innovative Artificial Intelligence Solution Providers of 2020.” On the cover of the magazine, we have featured Point Predictive Inc. Established in 2017, the company is the brainchild of a team of global fraud prevention solution executives who gained experience by working in leading organizations such as HNC Software, FICO, ID Analytics, BasePoint Analytics, CoreLogic and Fiserv. The company's mission is to help lenders stop fraud and misrepresentation losses with a broader goal of transforming the way lenders establish trust with their customers so they can fund more loans, faster and easier than ever before. In this magazine, you will also find latest article written by our talented writers in the section, “The Robot Revolution” and “Artificial Intelligence 2.0.” Happy reading!
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PointPredictive Using A Unique Combination of ArtiďŹ cial And Natural Intelligence To Address Fraud Risks
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Flutura
Accelerating Revenue Growth, ProďŹ t Generation, and Cost Savings
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Aivo
Transforming Customer Service with ArtiďŹ cial Intelligence
Linear Squared
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An Innovative Platform O ering A Robust And Comprehensive Suite Of Products
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CirroLytix Research Services Harnessing The Data Value Chain To Achieve Positive Change
Chetu
A Place where Expertise meets Excellence
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COVER STORY
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POINT PREDICTIVE Using A Unique Combination of ArtiďŹ cial And Natural Intelligence To Address Fraud Risks
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ome verticals or industries may be more vulnerable to fraud than others, but no business is absolutely risk-free. High volumes of fraud can harm a company, leading to both sales and reputation losses. Therefore, it is necessary to have measures in place to safeguard against potential fraud and misrepresentation. Moreover, in today's changing environment, companies will soon be facing considerable challenges managing rising rates of fraud and misrepresentation while balancing growth of their loan portfolios. This is where Point Predictive provides tremendous value to lenders. Established in 2017, Point Predictive is the brainchild of a team of global fraud prevention solution executives who gained experience by working in leading organizations such as HNC Software, FICO, ID Analytics, BasePoint Analytics, CoreLogic and Fiserv. The company's mission is to help lenders stop fraud and misrepresentation losses with a broader goal of transforming the way lenders establish trust with their customers so they can fund more loans, faster and easier than ever before.
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“Powering trust in lending with Ai.”
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Delivering A Wide Range Of Solutions, Uniqueness of Point Predictive When a consumer submits a loan to a third party or lender, they are often subject to a wide variety of requests for documentation and verification to prove their claims on the application. This is where Point Predictive technology is extremely valuable to ensure that those applicants who provide reliable, authentic, and accurate information are not inconvenienced and to provide lenders an ability to fund those loans faster and easier. To prevent fraudrelated and misrepresentation-related early payment default losses, the company offers fraud, risk, and loan streamlining solutions to the auto, mortgage, retail, and fintech lending industries. These solutions enable lenders to fund more loans using a patented combination of Artificial and Natural Intelligence [Ai+Ni] that powers machine learning risk assessments for lending decisions. The company's flagship product, Auto Fraud Manager, is one of the prime examples of a solution delivering compelling value to automotive lenders and car dealerships. The solution scores millions of automotive loan applications each month. It helps lenders across the nation reduce their losses on the riskiest applications by 30% or more while streamlining another 30% or more of their applications to improve loan pull-through and profitability. It also gives lenders an earlier indication of dealer behavioral risk than any other solution available today.
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What sets Point Predictive apart from others is that its solutions allow greater automation across more applications resulting in more accurate results with less fraud or material misrepresentation escaping unnoticed. Most other application fraud solutions available today focus
material misrepresentation. Identifying the 97% that can be funded safely—without unnecessary verification, tedious consumer proof documents, or risk of fraud due to material misrepresentation—is why lenders use solutions from Point Predictive.”
“Point Predictive powers a new level of lending confidence and speed through the unique combination of artificial and natural intelligence using decades of risk management expertise.” almost exclusively on verifying identity—is the borrower who they say they are? Point Predictive is different and goes beyond this narrow approach by providing a comprehensive risk assessment of everything on the application—i.e. income, collateral, employment and identity—in the context of its nationwide fraud and misrepresentation consortium data. This provides lenders with the most trust metrics of any solution, enabling them to make a fullyinformed risk decision about each application. The CEO of Point Predictive, Tim Grace asserts, “Typically, less than 3% of all credit-qualified loan applications contain fraud or
The Multi-Faceted Leader With Global Technology And Risk Management Experience Tim is a strategic innovator, having led the development of several revolutionary products in the financial services, payment card, and mortgage industries. He and a fellow co-founder kept hearing the same tales about significant inefficiencies in the consumer lending application experience across mortgage, automotive, and retail. Potential customers with excellent credit scores, long histories, and solid financial positions were being asked to provide multiple separate verifications of information on their application – they realized there must ™
COVER STORY
Tim Grace CEO
be a better way to both prevent fraud and streamline good applications. This idea was the foundation behind the formation of the company. As CEO, Tim's role is to keep the company's day-to-day, month-tomonth, and year-to-year activities going in the right direction for everyone to thrive. To achieve this, he develops the strategy, builds the team around him that can see that
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through, and then leads that team to create the products and solutions that will help Point Predictive serve its customers more efficiently. He says, “The most important thing I do for our team is ensure that they know how their individual contributions support our corporate goals. Our investors and our customers both expect great things from our company – each team member is essential to making that happen.”
Connecting With The Team On Various Communication Platforms Tim believes that motivation comes from within, from achieving something more than you achieved yesterday. So, he keeps his teams motivated by continually pushing them to go beyond the status quo. During these tough times, he has implemented a completely remote work environment with new
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initiatives around “connecting” with each other in meaningful ways. That means every meeting and every call is done on video. The teams frequently meet throughout the day—on Slack, on Zoom, on GoToMeeting—to mimic, as closely as they can, the environment of working together in an office.
resulting in unrivaled recognition of true and accurate loan applications. This results in more loan approvals, faster, with reduced documentation and verification requirements. Point Predictive's technology helps lenders profitably grow their loan portfolios while reducing losses related to misrepresentation and fraud.
Enhancing Their Ai Capabilities To Develop New Solutions For the past 25-30 years, Artificial Intelligence has been used as a core tool for decision making in financial services. Though tremendous steps have been made during that time, each year the pace of progress continues to increase faster and faster. Tim believes that infusing machine learning with natural intelligence to provide actionable predictions that make sense is critical for the continued expansion of Ai in financial services. Point Predictive applies this unique approach to Ai solutions for the financial industry. Its decades of risk management experience ensure that its Ai is actionable and effective for fraud detection and misrepresentation across all types of consumer lending. By combining Artificial + Natural Intelligence [Ai+Ni], Point Predictive carefully develops and tests machine learning models that help lenders confidently know whether information on a loan application is true and accurate, or whether the loan application contains information that is misrepresented or materially inaccurate. Human (natural) experience is then incorporated into these Machine Learning models,
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with a way to access the same Ai used by lenders to avoid fraud and misrepresentation, all while the customer is still in the dealership's finance office. Dealers who lead the way in proactive fraud prevention efforts will be in a better position to enjoy preferential terms with lenders on loans or other opportunities. For lenders, the company is launching a new Unemployment Checker
“If you want to accelerate innovation, you need to think differently and you need to avoid distraction. That’s exactly what we do.”
New Projects for the balance of the year In the second half of 2020, Point Predictive will launch innovative new technologies in fraud and risk solutions to serve more than 50,000 new and used car dealers in the US. These solutions will provide dealers
solution, which will provide a direct verification of a borrower's unemployment claim status during the application process. Pandemic Effect On The Market COVID-19 is impacting every industry and vertical served by Point ™
COVER STORY Predictive. For example, auto lenders have been originating fewer loans since borrowers and car dealerships are both affected by state-mandated lockdowns; those applications that they are receiving exhibit a higher risk profile—fraudsters never miss an opportunity. Tim believes that the combination of lower origination volumes and an
or even increase. This has the effect of increasing the overall effect of fraud on the bottom line. Furthermore, as volumes start to increase rapidly after the pandemic eases, fraudsters will almost certainly take advantage of this backlog to slip through potential gaps in risk management processes. Point Predictive can help lenders to stay ahead and avoid risks that are a
unemployment and how that impacts borrower affordability. How can a lender confirm a borrower is employed and if they can afford the loan?” Tim commented further. He believes this question is much harder to answer than it was before the pandemic with the high rates of unemployment we are experiencing in today's market. As a leading Ai company, Point Predictive is planning for that by piloting a new service that will help lenders identify those borrowers that might not be providing accurate information about their current employment situation so lenders can make informed decisions on those applications. It has also offered nocharge access to its Synthetic Identity Alert service to all auto lenders as its way of "giving back" to the hard-hit auto lending community through the end of 2020. A Piece of Advice
increasing borrower risk profile will lead to higher overall rates of fraud across auto, mortgage, and retail lending. Fraud can remain at manageable levels in healthy markets since high numbers of performing loans mask it. As market conditions become unfavorable, originations drop while attempts at fraud persist ™
natural byproduct of this crisis. New Challenges to Emerge “As the economy begins to reopen and lending volumes increase, we expect lenders will be dealing with a different world. An example of that will be the high rates of
As a seasoned entrepreneur, Tim offers his advice to aspiring entrepreneurs who want to thrive in the industry. He suggests they focus on making sure their product or solution delivers value to customers that they will pay for. He further states, “Every entrepreneur believes in their product and has lofty dreams, but you have to ensure you focus everything your company and products do toward delivering tangible value to your customers. Every customer should rave about your company and products; word will spread to get you the market adoption you need to succeed financially.”
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Company Names
Info
Aivo Martin Frascaroli, Founder & CEO
Established in 2012, Aivo is a technology company specialized in conversational AI. www.aivo.co
Beyond Analysis Paul Alexander, Group Chief Executive Officer
Beyond Analysis is a data science, analytics and strategic data solutions and consulting business. www.beyondanalysis.info
Chetu Atal Bansal, Founder & CEO
Chetu provides an extensive range of technological solutions and offers software development experts with industry-specific knowledge in over 40 different verticals. www.chetu.com
Cirrolytix Research Services Dominic Vincent Ligot, Founder & CTO
CirroLytix Research Services is a social impact data analytics company that leverages data to make a positive data-driven change in the world. www.cirrolytix.com
Cognistx and Kroll Sanjay Chopra, Co-Founder & CEO
Cognistx and Kroll is a Pittsburgh-based applied AI company, building multistrategy AI systems for clients in widespread industries. www.cognistx.com
Flutura Krishnan Raman, CEO
Founded in 2012, Flutura, an AI Solutions company is also tackling some similar challenges. www.flutura.com
Graymeta Tom Szabo, Co-Founder & CEO
GrayMeta enables companies to transform physical assets to digital, connect to, and access assets from anywhere, and create meaningful metadata using machine learning & AI services. www.graymeta.com
Linear Squared Sankha Muthu Poruthotage (Co-Founder & CEO), Rajith Munasinghe (Co-Founder & CMO), and Mohit Pande (Co-Founder & Senior Vice President)
Linear Squared is an innovative tech company specialized in building products that deliver ready-to-action insights using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies for businesses across multiple industries. www.linearsquared.com
PointPredictive Tim Grace, CEO
PointPredictive builds Predictive Models Using Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning Techniques That Help Our Customers Stop Fraud And Early Payment Default (EPD) www.pointpredictive.com
Zumata Josh Ziegler, CEO
Zumata builds an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chatbots, that enable partners to enhance customer interaction while providing excellent products and services at lower costs. www.zumata.com
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Aivo Transforming Customer Service with Artificial Intelligence
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he emergence of Artificial Intelligence has revolutionized the market significantly. It has simplified the complex data and reduced human errors up to a considerable extent. Digitization is leading the world towards automation and Artificial Intelligence is one of the key factors behind the upsurge of automation. Some types of Artificial Intelligence can be classified as Reactive Machines, Limited Memory, Theory of Mind, and Self Awareness. All these types are being used in several industries for different purposes. Apart from these, there is another type i.e. Conversational Artificial Intelligence which refers to the use of various AI tools for personalized customer experience. Presently, many companies are providing this type of AI for enriched customer communication and experience. Established in 2012, Aivo is also a technology company specialized in conversational AI. Since its inception, the company has revolutionized the way brands communicate with their customers. Aivo aims to help companies solve the customer needs in shortest possible time, with empathy and delivering the same experience in all channels of communication. Omnichannel Customer Service Solutions The solutions offered by Aivo are specially designed based on the needs
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and expectations of modern clients such as personalization, immediacy, quick solutions and 24×7 service. The company prominently provides following four solutions. Agentbot – An automatic solution for customer service, enriched with Artificial Intelligence. Ÿ Voice – Phone-based automatic customer service solution with Artificial Intelligence. Ÿ Live – Omnichannel chat solution that empowers customer service agents. Ÿ Help – A Centralized Knowledge Base and Smart Search Engine that enhances the self-service experience. Ÿ
These solutions allow automating operational tasks to empower the customers with superior assistance and support as they are simple to use, implement and evolve. Furthermore, these solutions provide omnichannel experiences to serve customers on any channel, text, and voice in more than 80 languages. Additionally, Aivo integrates its solutions with leading CX and CRM solutions such as Zendesk Chat, Support and Guide, Salesforce, Genesys PureCloud, Zapier. All these factors put Aivo one step ahead of its competitors. A Passionate Entrepreneur leading from the Front Martin Frascaroli, the Founder and CEO of Aivo, is the mainstay of the company. As the CEO, he oversees the
direction the company takes, manages the overall operations and resources of the company as well as acts as a main point of communication with the leadership and stakeholders. In his early days, he developed several projects even before he finished his high school. In 2005, he founded software agency for contact centers, and while working with them, he realized that a significant amount of time was being wasted in customer service for both companies and clients. Thus, he identified that a change was needed in customer service to make the process easier and more efficient. He started looking for solutions and found that the majority of work can be automated with artificial intelligence resulting in faster and better customer experience and more motivated employees that take care of the creative and complex tasks. This, along with the digital revolution that took place in the last year, was the inspiration behind Aivo. Led by a passionate entrepreneur, Aivo has emerged as one of the powerhouses in their field. The COVID-19 Effect The unexpected and disastrous outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has made companies rethink about their customer service strategies. It has posed numerous challenges in front of companies such as over-demand in customer service departments, moving their traditionally local operations to remote environments, and opening digital communication channels to
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Our AI powered technology makes it simple to automate and enhance your company’s support operations in a way that boosts internal e ciency while saving your money.
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support their clients. With its AI technology, Aivo is helping many companies modify their customer care strategy. Communication is the Key Aivo is thoroughly supporting its employees during this hard time. As it is a remote-oriented business, the company was prepared to translate its operations into work from home scheme. Furthermore, the company is concentrating on communicating more with the employees, carrying out catch up calls, and checking in on each other. The company is being extremely transparent with the direction of its business and making sure employees have everything they need to work from home comfortably. Preparations to Combat the Future Challenges Post the pandemic, Aivo is expected to face numerous challenges such as global expansion, better business-client relationship, promotion and pricing, etc. However, the company is thoroughly prepared to combat these challenges. While continuing to strengthen its position in Latin America, the company is currently focusing on growing its USA market and opening APAC and ME. It is looking forward to improve customer experience by establishing natural and seamless interactions with its own AI solutions.
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Martin Frascaroli Founder & CEO
Furthermore, Aivo is constantly working on adding new features and further integrations to its solutions which addresses the challenges in terms of product development. Moreover, out of several ongoing projects, the company is particularly looking forward to its new analytics feature. It is looking to further improve this feature by adding predictive technology and deeper data to help on BI. Martin's Views about AI and Entrepreneurship Having been utilized AI for businesses, Martin thinks that companies of all industries are adapting more and more AI into their business areas and this trend is expected to intensify with the time. However, AI is still not a 'mature' technology as it will become more pervasive in the future and there is a lot of potential to be tapped. As more companies use AI technologies in their strategies, this technology will learn and evolve. Thus, as time goes by, there will be constant improvements in AI technology. Being a successful entrepreneur, Martin suggests the aspiring entrepreneurs to focus on single product for a single vertical, always aim for something big, keep evolving, and find the right people for the particular work. He also emphasizes on being proactive saying, “The only thing you cannot buy is time, so do not expect things to happen. Take action in every situation that arises.”
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Chetu A Place where Expertise meets Excellence
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he outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has severely hit the global markets with many industries such as manufacturing, transport, and tourism being adversely affected. However, this pandemic has created several new opportunities for some industries. The software industry is one such industry that is continuously growing in this critical scenario as clients are looking to leverage new solutions to make their businesses more adaptable. Remote working, data management, and automation are some of the solutions that are in high demand, and clients are looking for easy-to-access and affordable software solution providers to make them a reality. Established in 2000, Chetu has been complementing this need. It is prominently known for providing superior, cost-effective software solutions for its clients while creating a simple work environment that promotes self-improvement for its employees. Chetu combines technological expertise, specific domain experience, and a passion for excellence to deliver enterprise-grade solutions all over the world. Extensive Range of Technological Solutions Chetu is a customer-centric company that focuses on providing end results to its clients with its simple and
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flexible governance. The company provides an extensive range of technological solutions and offers software development experts with industry-specific knowledge in over 40 different verticals. Chetu’s software experts are well-versed in all the major developing frameworks and are certified by many of the leading technology providers in the industry. They provide services such as Application Development, Infrastructure Support, PLM, Quality Assurance, and much more. Scalability is a key factor at Chetu where flexible development teams can be easily adjusted to meet the software needs of the client. Teams can either be ramped up or down to provide the greatest value to the clients based on their changing needs. Furthermore, the company has a wide customer base and has offices all around the world. This allows its software experts to work in the same time zones as its clients and offer a true local branch feel for its services. A Go-Getter leading from the Front Atal Bansal, the founder and CEO of the company, has been at the helm of Chetu for the past 20 years as it has experienced its incredible growth and success. Having worked for several software development firms before Chetu, he understood the high demand for software solutions for all
size businesses and was inspired to create his own unique environment with higher standards of excellence. Prior to joining the industry, he graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur and was always fascinated about building things and solving problems. As the CEO of Chetu, he oversees all the aspects of the business from operations and marketing to client acquisition and management. He works with all department heads to discuss the vision of the company and its intended goals. He aims to keep the business at the forefront of the technology space by leveraging the latest in cutting-edge software solutions as well as to maintain Chetu’s industry-specific expertise in over 40 verticals they work in. In his 20 years with the company, he has helped it achieve long-term, sustainable growth. When asked for advice for upcoming entrepreneurs, he said, “Invest in your business’s foundation. If you build your company with strong processes, you can ensure that it is built to last.” Dealing with Frequent Technology Changes With rapid industrialization and globalization on a large scale, every business confronts new and frequent challenges. This is especially true in the technology field, where newer innovations and advancements
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Chetu is a true and seamless backend technology partner, helping your business accelerate the development of desktop, mobile, and web-based apps with on-demand developers that focus on moving your business forward.
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ensure things are always changing. Thus, a company has to cope with these challenges by being flexible and adhering to best industry practices. Chetu deals with these challenges by using adaptable processes that allow the company to capitalize on previous successes and comply with its own best practices. In this everchanging technology field, Chetu is prepared to face and adapt to future challenges whether they be economic or technological. Boosting Employee Satisfaction and Security To cope with any type of challenge, the company needs to have an efficient workforce. Chetu emphasizes the fact that employees are its greatest asset and it strives to create the ideal working environment for them. The company encourages its employees to take ownership of their respective roles and also leverage executives for their experience and guidance. While it emphasizes personal satisfaction for employees, it also provides them communal support which ensures that teamwork still permeates individual achievements. Furthermore, in response to this critical scenario of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chetu’s policies have been helpful for its employees. The company has maintained its commitment to not laying off any employees, and providing daily bonuses to more than 80% of the team
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Atal Bansal Founder & CEO
members. Additionally, the company recently held an initiative named “Closing for a Cause,” where a portion of the proceeds of all sales went to the charities of choice for all its salespeople to help them help give back during these hard times. Artificial Intelligence: The Driving Force for Future Modernization and industrialization have been introducing numerous revolutionary concepts over the years. Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of them. As years have passed by, the full capabilities of AI are still to be realized. The number of companies adopting solutions like AI, i.e. the adoption rate, is still relatively low, however, from a business perspective, AI has greatly matured over the years and has proved to be highly effective in automating core processes. Presently, AI and process automation are aiding businesses to drastically improve the workflow and automate mundane activities. This has, in turn, reduced the time and optimized the efforts of employees needed to complete their work. These well-developed solutions are saving millions of dollars for companies. In the future, more document-heavy businesses and industries are expected to adopt more AI and RPA solutions to drastically improve and modernize their business.
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THE ROBOT REVOLUTION
truly replace humans. A kid knows that all things with four legs, such as chairs, aren't cats. IBM's Watson supercomputer triumphed on the quiz show Jeopardy in 2011, but it also thought Toronto was in the United States. Humans And Robots, Mutually Beneficial
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he robot revolution is a long-standing staple of science fiction, from Metropolis to The Terminator, and the spread of advanced machines in recent years has done little to contradict its seeming inevitability. But before master and servant switch roles, the robots of the world need to conquer a simple task: efficiently recognizing a cat. In 2014, it took some 16,000 computers running on a “neural network” set up by Google to accomplish this feat—something a toddler does by reflex. The algorithms for determining “catness” are rapidly improving, but this distinction between thinking and calculating is a great divide that robotics engineers will need to breach before robots can
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Robots are increasingly moving into more corners of the world. One study estimated that as many as 45% of jobs in the United States would be eligible for robot replacement over the next 20 years. Law offices have already reduced the demand for paralegals because computer programs can now process legal briefs and synthesize large documents. People have worried about being replaced by machines since the start of the industrial age. Although this has proved to be a legitimate concern in many jobs, machines can also be a complement to human endeavor rather than a substitute for it. Machines and computers, in general, have amplified human strength through mechanized tools, augmented human intelligence through information processing, and extended human reach through telecommunications and remote sensing. But these robots couldn't operate autonomously. They needed instruction—a person to think up the process and rules for
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each task and audit the outcome—just to be sure that the shipment from Amazon.com has a book about cats in the box, not one about woodworking or parakeets. This online retailer among the major adopter of robots, and a major advocate for collaboration between humans and machines. At Amazon's massive product warehouses, fleets of heavy-lifting robots bring shelves of products to a packaging employee, so the employee doesn't have to spend time locating the correct product. According to a recent report, the company now has 200,000 robots working in its warehouse.
plants. The radiation released resulted in the evacuation of 300,000 people and the development of a clean plan that will span decades. In that unsafe environment, humans turned to robots for damage analysis, radiation monitoring, and debris removal. Researchers in Australia have built a microscopic robot that can move around in a manner similar to E. coli bacteria. The tiny machine could take a biopsy from inside the human body. What Is A Robot?
Going Where No Human Can Go Hospitals rely on robots for tasks that range from hauling laundry to assisting with delicate surgeries. The world's first complete robot surgery took place in 2010 at McGill University Health Center in Montreal, Canada. A pair of robots called DaVinci (the surgeon) and McSleepy (an anesthesia bot) removed a patient's prostate. A surgical team
controlled DaVinci's arms via video control while observers in the room monitored the operation closely. Robotics allowed for greeted steadiness and precision in handling the instruments than a human could achieve, but the operator still needs to decide where and when to cut or stitch—at least for now. Thousands of military and police robots have been deployed successfully to do work that is too dangerous for humans. Robots can clear away land mines in war zones, inspect suspicious packages on city streets, and provide 3-D imaging of unstable buildings. Real-life robots can scout potentially hostile environments and keep soldiers safe, like the PackBot made by iRobot, which is used to identify explosives, chemical weapons, and radioactive materials. In March 2011, a tsunami devastated parts of Japan and severely damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
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What distinguishes a robot from other technologies or machines is not always clear-cut, in part because scientists have not yet come to a consensus on which machines qualify as robots. Generally, robots are autonomous or semiautonomous that can manipulate the physical environment through their moving parts or suggestions. At a basic level, robots need only to sense something and put what they are
sensing through a decision algorithm and act. They may resemble humans or other living things, and their range of capabilities may mimic “thought” and autonomous fiction. Humanoid devices with a broad array of abilities and decision-making skills are becoming more common, from Honda's Asimo, which resembles a person in a spacesuit, to Baxter, a robot factory worker. Rethink Robotics, the company that created Baxter, says that one of its advantages is trainability—you can show it what to do rather than program instructions. But today's robots still depend heavily on people, from robotic arms and other factory equipment that needs the correct coordinates to know where to go to the many military devices that need orders from a human operator. However, as artificial intelligence research advances, robots may someday be capable of making their own choices.
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CirroLytix Research Services Harnessing The Data Value Chain To Achieve Positive Change
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ince 2016, demand for data services has increased while, at the same time, schools and universities have begun producing knowledgeable graduates in the basics of data science and analysis, allowing companies to hire their own data teams more easily. This resulted in lesser demand for low-end analytics and business intelligence. Companies that operate at the higher end of machine learning and data engineering processes continue to flourish, particularly those that can implement flexible infrastructure such as hybrid cloud environments. CirroLytix Research Services is a social impact data analytics company that leverages data to make a positive data-driven change in the world. The company offers innovative solutions that work best in hybrid cloud environments. The Founder and CTO, Dominic Vincent Ligot established CirroLytix with a mission to help governments, non-profits, researchers, international and local organizations succeed at addressing collective social problems worldwide by harnessing the full power of their data. The Notion behind CirroLytix The motivation behind the inception of CirroLytix was to address a glaring gap witnessed by Dominic while he was working as established data science and IT consultant. He noticed that IT vendors were too focused on pushing technology and licenses than solving problems for clients. On the other hand, consulting firms had a lot of
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paper ideas but lacked the ability to execute them with technology. Furthermore, data science, big data, and artificial intelligence were common buzzwords used by firms. However, Dominic rarely encountered firms who were really knowledgeable beyond dabblers in the scene. Meanwhile, the dynamic leader has already built up substantial practical experience using data analytics from working in HSBC and ANZ global banks. Later as a Data Science Lead for Teradata Corporation, he figured he could offer an alternative in the market. “My motivation was to push the envelope with clients to embrace cloud-based technologies, go beyond data experimentation, embed automation and predictive modeling methods in their business, and maximize the use of big data. Clients embraced our hybrid approach: combining data science, consulting, and training, but without making technology the centerpiece, instead we discussed real solutions,” shares Dominic. As a result, CirroLytix came into existence. Today, as the CTO, Dominic still calls much of the shots in terms of the company’s technology vision. But, as the company grows, he interacts with younger team members who are more knowledgeable with the latest emerging tech and just as passionate about social impact. “Finding likeminded people committed to solving social problems is the biggest reason I do what I do, especially once it translates to positive change for our
clients and beneficiaries,” says Dominic. Venturing Into New Domain After back-to-back productive years in 2017-2018, Dominic felt a new domain was calling him: the UN Sustainable Development Goals. So in 2019, CirroLytix joined the Break The Fake hackathon organized by YSEALI and sponsored by USAID. The goal of this program was to use technology to help fight fake news. In this event, the CirroLytix team designed Troglodyte, an algorithm to map and tag conspiracies in fake news and won the Southeast Asian grand prize beating AI contenders in Malaysia and Indonesia. Shortly after that, CirroLytix won the NASA International Space Apps Challenge with Project AEDES. It is a solution that combines satellite data, climate data, social listening, and predictive modeling to help monitor and detect mosquito hotspots that caused dengue fever, as the Philippines was suffering a dengue epidemic at the time. “These experiences would prove educational for us and instrumental in our evolution to become an SDGdriven data firm,” asserts Dominic. Standing out from the crowd After achieving success in Break The Fake and NASA hacks, CirroLytix shifted its focus from commercial analytics work to the social impact sector. The company would bring its track record in marketing, financial, human resources, and operations applications to make a difference in
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Our applied analytics solutions help governments, researchers, NGOs, and social enterprises leverage their data value chain to achieve positive change.
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projects such as public health, food security, disinformation, and human rights. Furthermore, because of its emphasis on the entire data value chain: data sourcing, storage, analysis, and data products, CirroLytix is differentiating itself from others. Most of its peers mostly focus on data science. But, it has covered data engineering, combining data such as sensor feeds, public sector datasets, remote sensing (satellite data), and social listening with artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve its services. Connecting AI With Data “AI at a high level is still a loose coalition of research technologies such as computer vision, NLP, statistical modeling, and process automation,” says the CEO Dominic. He believes that over the next years, there will be advances and further integration of these methodologies to come up with solutions for humanity. He further states that the future of AI will depend on the next generation of practitioners who are not just knowledgeable with the algorithms and data structures but also the ethics of using AI. Emerging Challenges To Address CirroLytix believes after COVID-19 is resolved, people will have to face numerous obstacles in a radically different world where oil has less value, virtual work is the norm, health and ecology are paramount, and data ethics is top of the agenda. Therefore, the company’s approach is to bring cutting edge technologies such as AI, remote sensing, and social listening to bear on social problems. It hopes to leverage its recent experience using data to address
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Dominic Vincent Ligot Founder & CTO
COVID-19 and public health-related challenges towards solving other social problems. Developing New Projects, Enhancing Existing Services The past success with hackathons inspired CirroLytix to conduct the Bangsamoro Data Challenge, an initiative that generated solution prototypes and data research projects for the public sector. The company currently supports Data Ethics PH, a monthly podcast that tackles pressing ethical issues such as data privacy, security, data poverty, disinformation, AI discrimination, AI liabilities, and algorithmic justice. CirroLytix is collaborating with public health practitioners on epidemic modeling and pandemic risk assessment on the health front. It also supports the CoronaTracker, a WHOrecognized initiative to monitor the coronavirus statistics globally and also COVID-19 research. The company will continue to refine and promote its hackathon products: Troglodyte and Project AEDES. Working With Global Funders and NGOs COVID-19 has certainly brought pressure to bear on commercial firms to secure deals. Its social impact focus has uniquely positioned CirroLytix to work with global funders and NGOs in providing data-driven interventions for the COVID-19 crisis. CirroLytix Research Services is currently involved in various capacities from epidemic modeling, social listening for food security and human rights, remote sensing for pandemic monitoring, and research.
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10 THE
Innovative
Artificial Solution Providers of 2020
Flutura Accelerating Revenue Growth, Profit Generation, and Cost Savings
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rguably, Covid-19 is one of the biggest challenges for every industry. The abstruse part is that it brings several other challenges along with it. Irrespective of the region and business, it has affected everyone extensively. Founded in 2012, Flutura, an AI Solutions company is also tackling some similar challenges. At present, the company's major challenge is the decline in industrial activity and general market shock'. Due to Covid19, there is an abrupt pause in the critical technology projects, the fear is that this will further lead to insufficient development or partial implementation, thus hampering the industrial AI progress. AI is helping industries grow at a massive speed especially with arising confinements across industries due to COVID-19. Founded by the dynamic trio of Krishnan Raman, Derick Jose, and Srikant Muralidharan, The company focuses on achieving operational excellence across industries through asset uptime reliability and operational efficiency. As a technology company, it serves various clients from varied backgrounds such as Oil & Gas, Process Manufacturing, and OEM.
producers that have reduced the oil prices. Accompanying Covid-19, other challenges such as mobility restrictions and social distancing, and overall health concerns have hit the Process Manufacturing and disrupted the entire supply chain. Many companies are getting back on their feet and they are paying more attention to enable their operations with digital technology to improve productivity, quality, and most importantly safety. Taking charge of the current challenges, Flutura has divided all its challenges into the buckets of the mid-long-term effects of COVID and is prepared to combat the situation through strategic business planning. Ÿ
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Preparing To Combat the Situation Presently, the oil industry is under twin assault from the demand destruction caused by Covid-19 and a price war between key global
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In the immediate -term postCOVID, industries will still be facing the challenges of social distancing and mobility restrictions. With Industrial AI, it is planning to negate any such inevitable challenges by using remote monitoring, video analytics, and Other technologydriven solutions for operators to mitigate the adverse conditions and boost work safety. In the short term, it sees the adoption of digital technologies in the industrial domain as a musthave for survival. It is currently helping a few forward-looking companies achieve fuel affordability through operational
excellence with better resource utilization and reduced wastage/rework. Cerebra: An award-winning IoT platform Cerebra—Flutura's flagship AI platform creates industry-specific solutions across the value chain of Oil & Gas, Process Manufacturing, and OEM using its vertical-specific digital assistants. The product is configurable at the product and feature level. This helps clients experiment with the product as a 'plug and play' platform making it easy to use, be it, field operators or corporate executives. It has self-learning capability and it leverages both domain knowledge as well as technology expertise making it an industry preferred product. The company gives importance to achieve operational excellence and impeccable quality with the shortest turnaround time. This has helped its clients realize the value of Cerebra within 90 days of installing the product. With the analytical digital twin, clients can simulate different models of an asset to connect the best fit. The digital twin also helps in scaling the solution for a larger base. Flutura was one of the few companies to appear in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for IIOT platforms, it also received the highest ratings (4.8/5) from its customers in Gartner Peer Insights Voice of Customer report for IIOT platforms, 2019. Flutura is currently
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Trust is the highest form of human motivation and we at Flutura believe it brings out the very best of human values in people. Trust encapsulates integrity, intent, capability, and result.
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working on 2 major products. Cerebra Augmented Vision Intelligence is the video-centric approach to enhance the safety of the operators or filed engineers and do quality checks by doing image processing. Engineer's workbench concentrates on empowering operators or field engineers by bringing data science to engineers. Understanding the Responsibilities Krishnan Raman, CEO of Flutura is primarily responsible for understanding the market movement and look after existing customers. The team is on a mission to unlock 1 billion USD worth of value for its customers by 2024 and his role is to ensure that the team achieves it. Efficiency is the common theme of the company and the team is looking to start for the next possible efficiency levers to improve the bottom line and top line. Flutura zeroed on unplanned downtime of heavy machinery and Machine Influenced Process Deviations. Flutura has 100 plus members who act as the backbone of the company. Especially in the current times, when things are gloomy, the company's work has become more important than ever. Within a week, the team has developed a feature using Video streams to ensure safe distance between workers. Currently, the company is busy with two new products, and working on 2 more. Positive customer feedback has kept the team motivated and inspired.
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Krishnan Raman CEO
AI Impacting Present and the Future Over the years, the implementation of AI across the industries has proved to be very impactful. This has been backed by several surveys conducted by credible sources. With time, there is improved data literacy, greater transparency, and a sustained focus on the ethics of AI. Industries are reaping the benefits of AI in terms of reduced operations cost, optimum resource utilization, accurate forecasts, improved customer acquisition to name a few. But it is important to note that different industries are at different levels of AI maturity. For instance, while Oil & Gas is in the AI Proficient stage, process manufacturing is in the AI Ready stage, but OEM is still in the AI Novice stage. The future of AI will be seen across industries in a very short time. AI will not be an option but only a way to do business with high competition. Currently, Flutura is working with multiple organizations. One of them is an integrated Oil & Gas supermajor (the second largest company in the domain), another one is a major midstream pipeline company, then there is a leading adhesive manufacturer and a leading catalyst manufacturer. Soon, it will be launching Engineer's Workbench (EWB), its latest product for Industrial engineers. EWB concentrates on empowering operators or field engineers by bringing data science directly in their hands. In a few clicks, they can do the analysis for which they have to rely on external teams.
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AI 2.0
Artificial
Intelligence
2.0 A Blend of Natural Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence
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he proliferance of Artificial Intelligence has increased significantly over the recent years. With AI-related research and applications rapidly increasing, industries are inclining more towards the potential uses of AI. According to a report issued by venture capital corporation CB Insights in the US in 2016, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple, Intel, and other information technology giants have acquired over 140 entrepreneurial firms in the field of AI since 2011. This large number of mergers and acquisitions, along with the influx of capital are accelerating the development of AI technology. The development of AI technology is further driven by research and the information environment. Although both factors are important, but the information environment has the stronger driving force. With the emergence of big data, increasing use of internet, rise of information community,
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the information environment surrounding AI has significantly changed. Furthermore, development of ecommerce, and interconnection and fusion of data and knowledge in society, physical space, and cyber space are also contributing to the change. This has led AI to a new evolutionary stage, viz Artificial Intelligence 2.0. In this article, we will look upon the emergence of AI 2.0 and dive into some important insights. The External Dynamic Forces Promoting AI 2.0 The formation of AI 2.0 is promoted by several external forces. The concept of AI actually originated prominently from the changes in four areas as mentioned below. ¡
With the popularity of mobile terminals, internet, sensor networks, vehicular networking, and wearable devices, the information environment of
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the 21 century has changed profoundly. The sensing devices are extensively distributed throughout the cities, and the unprecedented rapid expansion of networks connecting individuals and groups throughout the world continues to reflect and aggregate demands, knowledge, and capabilities. Furthermore, world has evolved from a binary space – physics and human society or PH, to a ternary space – cyber, physics, and human society or CPH. These CPH interactions have formed new computing paradigms and have promoted the need of AI 2.0 ·
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The AI research is shifting from being driven by academic curiosity to being driven by demands that are focused outside of academia. Moreover, as the social demands of AI are expanding rapidly, AI research is also undergoing swift changes. Moreover, the new goals and problems in intelligent cities, medicine, transportation, logistics, manufacturing, and smart products as well as driverless automobiles and smartphones, all require AI development, thus many enterprises are actively promoting new AI research. The goals of AI have also undergone major changes. AI has transformed from the pursuit of 'using a computer to stimulate human intelligence' to enhanced hybrid intelligence systems combining machines and humans, new crowd intelligence systems, and more complex intelligence systems, such as intelligent cities combining humans, societies, physics, and cyber systems.
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Newly Emerged Technologies Driving AI 2.0 Several new technological advancements are also driving the development of Artificial Intelligence. Here are some of these technologies that are driving the AI 2.0. · Internet Crowd Intelligence: The Internet Crowd Intelligence technologies have recently gained ground. A research divided the crowd into three types according to the difficulty level – crowdsourcing used to realize task allocation, complex workflows, and problem-solving ecosystems. The large scale crowd exhibits extraordinary intelligence capabilities through the participation and interaction of individuals on internet, which constitutes this new type of intelligence system. Internet Crowd Intelligence computing can greatly enhance the knowledge base available to human society, and has extensive and important applications as well. ·
Autonomous Intelligent Systems: Robotics development has been a focused target since the birth of AI, with bionics as an important developmental direction. However, most bionic robots that were developed over the past 60 years have failed upon application. Advancements in developing automated intelligent mechanical equipment are more effective, easy, and economical. Thus, the autonomous-intelligent systems will be an important developmental direction for future generations of AI.
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Cross-media Intelligence: An important characteristic of human intelligence involves the comprehensive utilization of the information attained from various forms of perception, including vision, language, and auditory sense, to enable recognition, inference, design, creation, and prediction. Likewise,in 2013, a paper in Nature entitled “2020 Vision” discussed the term cross media as describing the integration of text, images, voice, and video. Cross-media intelligence represents a cornerstone of AI, in that it allows machines to recognize their external environment. Presently, it is in the early stages of its development, however, it is expected to form an important filed of AI in the near future.
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Human-machine Hybrid-augmented Intelligence: Human intelligence constitutes a form of natural biological intelligence that is different from that of AI. The simulation of human intelligence by computer is important; in contrast to such simulation, hybrid intelligence systems are formed by cooperation between computer and humans to form an augmented intelligence of “1+1>2.” Wearable devices, intelligent-hybrid vehicles, exoskeleton devices, and human-machine collaborative surgeries have been developed till date, suggesting that the human-machine hybrid-augmented intelligence system has vast potential for future development.
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AI 2.0
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Lastly, the data resources related to AI are also changing. AI depends upon data-driven algorithms and gives rise to a new information environment. These calculations will be driven by an increasing amount of sensors and networks, big data, and cross media information. Thus, the development of AI related to these aspects, with a perceptive and fused intelligence is inevitable.
AI 2.0: Salient Features AI 2.0 is a new stage of AI research that is different from that of the past 60 years. It focuses on the current technological advances, with the goal of pursuing breakthroughs in AI by combining internal and external driving forces. Moreover, AI 2.0 will integrate natural intelligence and artificial intelligence to enhance human intellectual activity, and will be closely integrated into human life (cross-media and autonomous systems) to the point of being a part of human body (hybrid augmented intelligence).
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Furthermore, it will be capable of reading, managing, and recombining human knowledge to make suggestions for social problems, including daily life, production, resource usage, and the environment. In the future, with assistance of AI 2.0, humans will be able to obtain better insight and effective management to interact with complex macroscopic systems including urban development, ecological protection, economic management, and financial risk. AI 2.0 will also be able to solve problems, such as medical treatment, product design, energy conservation, and safe driving. To conclude, as the world moves rapidly towards the technological age, organizations will need to cope with the changing market scenario and for that, they will need to adopt the new technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, etc. These technologies will surely help businesses survive and prosper in this new technology age.
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10 THE
Innovative
Artificial Solution Providers of 2020
Linear Squared An Innovative Platform O ering A Robust And Comprehensive Suite Of Products
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ith the adoption of technologies, businesses and industries are undergoing digital transformation. Due to technological advancements, AI is becoming an integral part of the digital transformation process. The use of AI technology is estimated to grow up at USD 98 billion by 2023 according to the reports of IDC and Gartner predicts that the global spending on AI will be 3 folds in the next 5 years. By uncovering the AI potential and deploying them in business, practices will lead to the rise of adoption. It is anticipated that customers will prefer products that are easy to deploy and give a very high ROI. This increased adoption will contribute to making AI the new norm of the business world. Sankha Muthu Poruthotage (Co-Founder and CEO of Linear Squared) believes that collaborative intelligence will play a vital role in upgrading the AI performance. He says, “Collaborative Intelligence is the key to this, if AI can be made more creative, applicable and accessible across many industries and it will no longer be viewed as a technology of the elite.” Sankha and his founding partners Rajith Munasinghe (Co-Founder and CMO), and Mohit Pande (CoFounder and Senior Vice President) understood the potential of Collaborative Intelligence a long time ago and thus established Linear Squared with a vision to deliver ready to use AI and ML-driven products that convert data to proactive actions. The founders sensed that offering a combined Machine learning and Big Data solutions for the mass
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consumption could make this tech familiar even for the non-technical users. Sankha further explained, “To draw a parallel from the PC industry, during early days personal computing meant assembling several components such as display units, keyboards, and motherboards on your own. It was limited to technical uses until Apple II came along. We felt that Machine Learning was at a similar stage!” Innovative Suite of Products Linear Squared is an innovative tech company specialized in building products that deliver ready-to-action insights using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies for businesses across multiple industries. Its products leverage on Machine learning and Deep Learning algorithms that enable these products to achieve both scale and accuracy. The SaaS product is cost-effective as it leads to paying per usage model which makes it affordable to many companies. Also, these products are easily deployable across industries because the companies can train their own data and customize it to capture industry specifics. These innovative suites of products comprise, FORECAST2, this is a highly scalable, multi-variant forecasting solution that allows users to build 1000s of forecasting models in 2 just 05 minutes. Also, CAPACITY which is the world's first Artificial Intelligence-driven sewing planning assistant for the apparel industry.
Proficient Leader and a SelfMotivated Team Where the products in the market juggle between either scale or accuracy, Linear Squared products achieve both scale and accuracy without compromising one another. The team of Linear Squared ensures that the products deliver the user the ability to build 1000s of models whilst considering a multitude of influencing variables. This team is under the leadership of Sankha who has managed to deliver the best products to the customers. Sankha, along with Rajith and Mohit, looks over the operations of the company. However, primarily Sankha heads the product development. He holds a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Connecticut, USA. He specializes in classification techniques using both parametric models and Machine Learning algorithms, regression and GLM models, clustering and segmentation techniques, survival models, changes point detection, and sequential techniques. As a leader, the responsibilities are never-ending and sometimes the role gets overwhelming, however, Sankha enjoys his role in product development. He gets to be the part of fun debates with the team members, like with the Data Science team on algorithms, with engineering teams on Software Architecture, with Rajith and Mohit on the product strategies. Currently, as pandemic has forced the businesses to work from remote locations, it becomes tough to communicate and understand further
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With a great pool of Data Scientists in Sri Lanka, we have some of the best minds working with us to solve the toughest problems, which you may have.
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strategies. Times like these demand a leader that can motivate the team and push them forward. Nevertheless, Sankha states that it is opposite in Linear Squared as it's the employees they draw motivation from. The team comprises young teammates thus they are self-motivated. This runs a positive attitude throughout the work ecosystem. “I draw a lot of inspiration and motivation from them! Not the other way around. I would like to think it's a combination of culture and the kind of work that we get to do,” conclude Sankha. Unprecedented Challenges of Pandemic The unprecedented effect of the pandemic has created chaos in many business operations. It led to an irrational buying pattern, which was not something the retail customers had experienced before. The panic amongst individual surged the rise in purchasing goods. For years, Linear Squared has brought together cutting-edge technology and native industry understanding to aid data-backed strategic decision-making and execution. However, in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis the biggest challenge the team faced was not being able to stimulate such an event due to the lack of data related to such behavior. Sankha said, “We were not able to build models to capture such a scenario.” However, the team of Linear Squared has managed to turn this crisis into an opportunity and currently is working with customers to train ML models using data from other indicators, which can reflect consumer behavior during these times. The pandemic has opened up new opportunities for the retail industry, especially for online grocers. Also, many of its clients have recorded a surge in demand and benefits. Change of events has shed light on the importance of better forecasting and inventory management. Apart from this, the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry are being digitally transformed due to customer demand. Keeping up
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Sankha Muthu Poruthotage, Rajith Munasinghe & Mohit Pande (Left to Right)
with the demand Linear Squared is updated with the requirements and upgrading products accordingly. Linear Squared has always been innovating and experimenting 2 with its products. Recently, FORECAST had a major release and in the coming months, the team plans to launch new modules of FORECAST2. Sankha believes that start-ups have a rich appetite for risk-taking, he concludes his statement by saying, “Funnily enough, start-ups are more than willing to launch new things than more established organizations. Sometimes I feel we have to launch less and persevere more.” Essential Elements for Business Through the years, Sankha has been benefitted with the rich industry experience and has helped him establish a leading AI solution provider company like Linear Squared. According to him, a successful business needs to have many elements aligned like the product, pricing, distribution, marketing and branding, teammates, etc. All of these elements need to align properly which requires a continuous tweak and measure them to get them fine-tuned. This process requires time and effort, which makes patience and hard work the key here. Sankha further advises that one can rarely get these elements fine-tuned through money thus the focus should be on getting them right. Start from the simple and solve a narrow problem at first. Understand the process of fine-tuning these elements through that narrow solution. By tackling these elements and fine-tuning them accurately will prepare the entrepreneurs for the bigger challenges set ahead in the journey.
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