Invited Speakers
Keynotes
Isabelle Guyon is professor of data science at Université Paris-Saclay (Orsay) and researcher at INRIA, specialized in statistical data analysis, pattern recognition and machine learning. Her areas of expertise include computer vision, bioinformatics, and power systems. Her recent interest is in applications of machine learning to the discovery of causal relationships. Prior to joining Paris-Saclay she worked as an independent consultant and was a researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories, where she pioneered applications of neural networks to pen computer interfaces (with collaborators including Yann LeCun and Yoshua Bengio) and co-invented with Bernhard Boser and Vladimir Vapnik Support Vector Machines (SVM), which became a textbook machine learning method. She is also the primary inventor of SVM-RFE, a variable selection technique based on SVM. The SVM-RFE paper has thousands of citations and is often used as a reference method against which new feature selection methods are benchmarked. She also authored a seminal paper on feature selection that received thousands of citations. She organized many challenges in Machine Learning since 2003 supported by the EU network Pascal2, NSF, DARPA, and the European Commission, with prizes sponsored by Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Disney Research, and Texas Instrument. Isabelle Guyon holds a Ph.D. degree in Physical Sciences of the University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris, France. She is president of Chalearn, a non-profit dedicated to organizing challenges, action editor of the Journal of Machine Learning Research, editor of the Springer series of Challenges in Machine Learning, and served recently as program co-chair of NIPS 2016 and general co-chair of NIPS 2017. She ins the 2020 recipient of the BBVA Frontiers in Research Award together with Prof. Schoelkopf and Prof. Vapnik.
Evelyne Viegas is Senior Director of Global Research Engagement at Microsoft Research. In her current role, she leads initiatives in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Computing Systems, Experiences and AI and Society, working in partnership with the academic research community, and business groups, worldwide. She develops signature programs via research collaborations to drive open innovation.
Prior to her present role, Evelyne worked as a Technical Lead at Microsoft delivering Natural Language Processing components to Office and Windows. Before Microsoft, and after completing her Ph.D. in France, she worked as a Principal Investigator at the Computing Research Laboratory in New Mexico on an ontology-based Machine Translation project. Evelyne serves on international editorial, program and award committees.
Saugato Datta is a Managing Director at ideas42, where he works with partners to design, test and scale applications of behavioral science to benefit poor people in developing countries. His current projects explore the application of behavioral science to water use, violence reduction, reproductive health, immunization, family planning, agricultural finance, financial inclusion, and the design of cash transfers in countries including Madagascar, Uganda, Nepal, Ethiopia, Kenya and Mozambique. With Alaka Holla at the World Bank, he is currently working on a 4-country companion study to the 2015 World Development Report, which focuses on the measurement and consequences of behavioral biases in developing countries and the cognitive burden of accessing government services.
Lara Mangravite is the President of Sage Bionetworks, a nonprofit organization that focuses on open practices to accelerate the translation of science into medicine. We work to reduce legal, social, and scientific restrictions that serve as barriers in the process. This includes practices for responsible data sharing, for benchmarking algorithms and outcomes, and for establishing translational workflows. Prior to her time at Sage, Dr. Mangravite obtained a BS in Physics from the Pennsylvania State University, a PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of California, San Francisco, and conducted a postdoctoral fellowship in cardiovascular pharmacogenomics at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute.
Aleksandra (Saška) Mojsilović is a scientist, Head of AI Foundations at IBM Research, Co-Director of IBM Science for Social Good, and IBM Fellow. She is a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the IBM Academy of Technology. Saška received her PhD in Electrical Engineering in 1997 from the University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia. She has worked at Bell Laboratories (1998-2000) and IBM Research (2000-present). Her main research interests include multidimensional signal processing, data science, machine learning and AI. Over the last 20 years, Saška has applied her skills to problems in computer vision, healthcare, multimedia, finance, HR, economics, social good, and AI ethics.
Moderator: Jared Council (Wall Street Journal)
Jared Council is part of the enterprise technology team at WSJ, focusing on CIOs and trends related to artificial intelligence. In past reporting stints he's covered startups, venture capital and commercial real estate. Follow him on Twitter: @JaredCouncil
Tech Rescue Family: Loveth, Angel, and Joshua (Nigeria)
Loveth, Angel, and Joshua are Technovation Families regional winners from Nigeria. They created an AI prototype, Tech Rescue, to reduce the number of kidnappings in their country. The invention helps parents monitor the location of their children and loved ones by tracking the current location of the child and sending a text message notification to their guardian if they diverge from a set route.
Cavity Crusher Team: Salman, Fareeha, and Yasir (Pakistan)
Cavity Crusher’s algorithm uses tooth brushing time to determine a child’s oral health habits. If the model determines inadequate toothbrushing, it will notify the parent. Prior to this prototype, the family built a model able to recognize images of toothbrushing.However, they determined more accurate results could be achieved with number data.
Kasak Bather (Pakistan)
Kasak is currently a Grade IX student in The City school Nawabshah campus, Sindh Pakistan. She participated in Technovation’s Idea Lab program, where she designed an initiative to reduce the mortality rate of newborn children in District Tharparkar, Pakistan. Along with her studies, Kasak is interested in projects that allow her to serve and have a positive impact in her community and homeland.
Iara Martinez (Brazil)
Iara participated in Technovation's Idea Lab program from Brazil. Her sign language-Portuguese translation project aims to reduce education disparities for children with hearing disabilities. A junior in high school and beginner programmer, Iara loves learning about the world of technology.
Horm Chhorleang (Cambodia)
Mr. Chhorleang has a bachelor degree of science from Paragon International University. He was selected to attended the NUS Enterprise Summer Programme on Entrepreneurship at the National University of Singapore in 2018. Currently, he is the Chief Operation Officer at Tech for Kids, the leading education provider on technology and entrepreneurship for the next generation. Mr. Chhorleang has mentored for Technovation Girls Cambodia since 2016, and was elected to lead Technovation Families Cambodia in 2019.
Garba Dickson (Cameroon)
Garba Dickson is a graduate with a Bachelors's degree in ICT(Information and Communication Technology). He is a motivated individual with valuable skills in Information Technology specialized in web design and digital marketing. Also, he possesses relevant professional experience in IT management, leadership, and mentoring and has been working with youths for over 2 years. He has exceptional skills adapting to multiple working environments and remains attentive to details. Dickson aims to create technology awareness and empower youths with the necessary Information Technology skills needed in this technological era.
Laura Monferrer (Spain)
Laura works at Vodafone as a Business Analysis Specialist, with most of her experience in telecommunications operations. She has run Technovation Families in Valencia for 2 years as part of the nonprofit Power to Code.