Absolute AI

Data, especially when leveraged by AI, has the potential to mitigate risk, reduce expenses, and boost revenue. No wonder countless businesses today are working to become more data driven. But how to turn raw data into a business asset rather than a liability remains a challenge across industries. 

This week Melody is joined by Prashanth Southekal, the Managing Principal of DBP-Institute, a Data Analytics Consulting and Education company. They discuss how companies can utilize data and analytics to achieve monetizable business results. Prashanth offers a glimpse into the massive amounts of data that companies are managing today and how to wield analytics, data, and intuition to drive informed decision making. He outlines the steps that companies need to take to improve data quality and make their data work for them.

Co-Founder and CEO of Agolo, Sage Wohns, joins Melody on the podcast today to discuss his programming and business strategy experience and how he has combined them to advance the role of AI particularly in finance and news organizations. He also reveals the keys to the founder role in which he has excelled, and the role models whose example he feels are worthy of emulating.

Absolute AI Homepage

Innodata

Agolo Homepage

Melody’s very special guest on the podcast this week is Darren Oberst, Senior Corporate Vice President and Global Head of HCL Software. Formally educated in the fields of Law, Physics, and Philosophy, Darren has built upon his lifelong interest in technology, especially coding, to become a leader in product and corporate development throughout the world. Today, he takes listeners through the journey of his career, offering valuable insights into the world of technology, AI, and leadership, which are as fascinating as they are informative. 

Darren begins by describing the role that his background in natural science and the humanities played in the vast amount of success he has enjoyed throughout his career, particularly his innovative work with HCL. A passionate hobbyist in ML development and research, Darren also has a great deal to share about the success criteria necessary when developing and testing models. This, paired with his many years of international experience, render him a leadership expert with extensive insights and helpful advice in this area as well. As you listen in, the sheer amount of information and wisdom which Darren possesses will strike you, along with the sincere enthusiasm this seasoned professional brings to the work that both inspired him as a child and continues to excite and drive him forward today.

Before becoming a part of the founding team of HCL Software, Darren spent 10 years at IBM in a diverse set of leadership roles and had also launched and run businesses throughout the world. He has served as the Senior Vice President and General Manager for webMethods, a leading e-business infrastructure software company, and started his career in Silicon Valley as an investment banker at Robertson Stephens. Darren has a JD with Honors from Harvard Law School and a BA summa-cum-laude from UC-Berkeley with dual degrees in Physics and Philosophy.

•  1:51 Darren’s educational history and its role in his journey to professional success
• 6:03 His role at HCL and its integration of AI
• 15:09 Darren’s hobby as a ML developer/researcher and its impact on his perspective regarding models
• 29:05  His methods for becoming a successful leader
• 33:47  Darren’s vision of the future for AI

Darren’s educational history and its role in his journey to professional success 

2:04   “I think it gave me a pretty broad set of skills, just in terms of...critical thinking, breaking down...problems, coming at it from a lot of different angles.”

His role at HCL and its integration of AI

 10:05   “A big...part of our playbook has been, ‘let's get the right foundation in place, let's not try to solve every problem, you know, until we're ready for it.’”

11:35 “That's very much the way that we sort of rolled out our cloud strategy - crawl, walk, run - focus on making sure the product is right before you just sort of throw it up on a cloud, and make sure that you have a differentiated strategy.”

13:28 “I think in the real world, start with the simplest model, the simplest solution that you have, make sure that you've got really good data and really good data quality, and that's usually the best place to start in any kind of AI initiative.”

Darren’s hobby as a ML developer/researcher and its impact upon his perspective regarding models 

16:15 “These types of predictive technologies grounded in machine learning aren't going away. They are the future, you know, they've become more prevalent in our life today than they were five years ago. They're going to be even more...

Joining Melody on today’s episode is Elizabeth Pritchard, recently named CEO of Bitvore - the leader in AI-driven intelligence from unstructured data. Elizabeth begins by sharing her journey into the STEM and finance industries, her 19-year tenure at Goldman Sachs, and the evolution of alternative data in the financial industry. She goes on to explain what alternative and unstructured data are, the challenges of extracting information from it and leveraging AI and the structured data it creates. 

Elizabeth illustrates how traditional and alternative data can offer differ perspectives on a company, for example they may claim to be green, but ESG data shows that they are actually heavy emitters. These insights can help investors gain a more nuanced view of companies and help combat ‘greenwashing.’ The conversation concludes with her passionate advocacy work empowering young people, especially girls, to pursue STEM, and offers her vision of the world in the year 2041. Brimming with knowledge, wisdom, and enthusiasm, Elizabeth Pritchard is a well-known serial innovator, data activist, and analytics-driven executive, and, as you will hear today, a gifted educator and agent of change as well. 

Elizabeth Pritchard has 25 years of experience as an executive in financial services, driving data and technology innovation for financial institutions and start-ups. She was Global Head of Market Data at Goldman Sachs and COO of the Global Data Science Group at AIG, co-founded Crux Informatics, where she was Head of Go-To-Market Strategy.  Just prior to accepting the CEO position at Bitvore, provided advisory services to alternative data and data infrastructure providers through her own company, White Rock Data Solutions. Elizabeth also advises industry professional associations SIIA and FISD Alternative Data Council on go-to-market strategy, and serves on the Board of Directors at Eagle Alpha and Global Data. 

Episode Highlights:

·   Elizabeth’s journey into STEM and finance

·   Her time at Goldman Sachs and the evolution she saw in the financial industry from a data driven innovation and AI perspective

·   Examples where traditional and alternative data offered differing views

·   Unstructured data and the challenges in extracting information out of it

·   Leveraging AI and the structured data it creates

·   What attracted Elizabeth to Bitvore and the initiatives there about which she is most excited

·   How Bitvore is bringing insights from ESG data to battle company ‘greenwashing’

·   Elizabeth’s advocacy with Girls Who Code and STEM++Inno

Soundbites from the Expert:

Elizabeth’s journey into STEM and finance

2:05   “I was really born with this innovator bug.”

2:43   “’Listen, when you come here in the morning, you've got to put on your thick skin.’ That is

 the lesson…and that's wisdom that has really resonated, if you will, throughout my career.”

3:28   “I learned very much so to focus on what's really happening, and learn to be data driven,

        and let the data do the talking. And always be fact, based in decision making.”

Her time at Goldman Sachs and the evolution she saw in the financial industry from a data driven innovation and AI perspective

6:37   “That whole discovery, if you will, of this world of data that can describe not only

companies actually, but also how economies are performing…being able to mine the 

data in the world that's being made available in an ever increasing rate - that was the

...

Welcome to the very first episode of the Absolute AI podcast, where, each week  you will have the opportunity to hear the humans behind artificial intelligence talking about cutting edge innovation and the unique challenges posed by this new technological frontier. The very special guest for this premier episode is Dennis Mortensen, CEO and Founder of x.ai, a sophisticated AI platform that solves the problem of scheduling meetings. A serial entrepreneur who built and successfully exited 4 companies as a Founder and CEO, Dennis is also a recognized leader, author, and university instructor in the field of Data Analytics and AI. Today, he delves into this vast amount of experience to pass on wisdom and advice for all to hear.

Dennis begins the interview by sharing the origins of his interest in computer science, his experience of becoming an entrepreneur, and starting x.ai. He goes on to discuss the technical challenges that he and his team faced at the start, their work in flipping the onus for accuracy onto the client, and the concepts of educating the market and explainable AI. He finishes up by detailing how they set up their system to distinguish between important and superfluous information, and offering his perspective on the future of work. Possessing an innate ability to render the complexities of his work entirely accessible, Dennis shares his experience, knowledge, advice, and thoroughly enjoyable sense of humor with listeners here today – a fitting springboard to this fascinating new podcast.

Episode Highlights:

·   The origins of Dennis’ interest in computer science

·   Becoming an entrepreneur

·   Starting x.ai

·   The technical challenges he and his team faced

·   Flipping the onus for accuracy onto the client

·   Pitfalls of educating the market

·   Explainable AI

·   Setting up their AI system in a way to distinguish between important and superfluous information

·   Future of Work

·   Dennis’ vision of the future

Soundbites from the Expert:

The origins of Dennis’ interest in computer science

“One day on the telly, they showed an old movie called Wargames, you might not remember it, but that really touched me.”

Becoming an entrepreneur

“The only reason that I briefly thought I would make a small entrepreneurial run was that the company that I worked for in college went bankrupt.”

“What I'm trying to do instead is just walk around, look at my life, and take note if there are things that don't work the way they should, or to the point where I actually get annoyed or disappointed.”

Starting x.ai

“Any startup is usually one of two challenges…either a tech/science challenge of some sort, or a market challenge.”

The technical challenges he and his team faced

“There's no way I can ever come up with any model that will be able to kind of predict anything if I don't even know what the end of this list looked like.”

“It's not as black as white as as this, but there's probably two types of AI sort of types of predictions that you could make. There’s low accuracy predictions for where whatever prediction you make, it is of value. Then there’s high accuracy predictions, where if you don't reach a certain kind of threshold, anything which you make, it's really not of value.”

Pitfalls of educating the market

“I'm just saying that if you're in a position where you need to kind of reframe it and rewire the full population of your...

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming interwoven into the fabric of our society through the way we communicate, work, and problem solve. 

Our mission is to share and amplify the voices of the creators, thinkers, researchers, and innovators taking AI from prototype to production. With each episode, we will dive into the nitty-gritty details of how AI is helping to solve common and complex challenges.