Looking for Humanity in Data

Welcome Kerry Liu, Founder of Rubikloud, and Kanchana Padmanabhan, Manager of Data Science. It was about a decade ago that this idea of Omnichannel began to take hold. Traditional retailers saw it as a "concept" as their predominantly bricks and mortars presence continued to be the focus channel to serve their customers. Fast forward to 2018 and Machine Learning is bringing this concept into fruition.

I had the pleasure of meeting with CEO Kerry Liu and Manager of Data Science, Kanchana Padmanabhan of Rubikloud, a Toronto-based software company that has come the closest to delivering on this promise today.

In this episode we discuss:

• The beginnings of Rubikloud
• The fragmentation of retail today and the challenge to succeed by harmonizing customer experiences from all chanels
• Data and GDPR challenges
• The future of retail

Welcome Dennis Mortensen, Founder and CEO of x.ai (xdotai), a personal assistant in the form of artificial intelligence, who schedules meetings for you. You may know these assistants as Amy or Andrew Ingram.

Dennis is a pioneer and expert in the analytics, optimization and big data space and has been since its inception. He is also a fully-fledged entrepreneur and successfully delivered a number of company exits including one to Yahoo! Dennis is also an accredited Associate Analytics Instructor at the University of British Columbia, and the Author of Data Driven Insights.

In this episode we discuss:

• The rise of cognitive computing and artificial intelligence, threatening traditional business models.
• XdotAI: how it all began with the pain of meeting scheduling.
• The reality: AI will deliver net job growth, NOT losses.
• The importance of understanding language and being singularly focused.
• What is the vision for x.ai in the next 5 years?

Welcome Chris Diehl and David Gutelius, Co-Founders of The Data Guild, which create data driven solutions that tackle some of the world's toughest challenges.

As Data Science proliferates the ability to marry of disparate sources of information and uncover relationships among entities continues to surface new solutions that was not possible even a decade ago.

Both Chris and David have extensive experience in designing and developing advanced analytics for companies like Jive, Proximial Labs, DARPA, and John Hopkins University to name a few. This episode was a pleasant learning experience for me as it allowed me to see an altruistic side of Data Science that may be not be readily apparent in this age of perpetual tech disruption.

In this episode we discuss:

• Business transformation: "Out with the old mindset".
• The mission of the Data Guild and where it all began.
• Faer: the Data Guild's data-driven solution for the health care industry.
• "Marketing is Spam. Real engagement makes people happy, fulfilled, heard and  motivated." David and Chris discuss their new product, Motion, and how this will tackle some of today's challenges in marketing.
• What is the vision for Data Guild in the coming decade?

Welcome Jonathan Kreindler, CEO and Co-Founder of Receptiviti.  Receptiviti is a language-based personality analytics technology company.

In this episode we discuss:

Welcome Rob High.  Rob is an IBM Fellow, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Watson Solutions, IBM Software Group. He has overall responsibility to drive Watson Solutions, technical strategy and thought leadership. As a key member of the Watson Solutions Leadership team, Rob works collaboratively with the Watson engineering, research, and development teams across IBM.

In this episode we discuss:

Welcome David Lebow, inventor and CEO of HyLighter.

David received his PhD in Instructional Systems Design from FSU in 1995 and has won several national awards for his work in the area of computer-enhanced collaborative learning environments. His current interest is on the future of Social Machines. David is currently developing a Sense-making-as-a-Service business for open data.

In this episode, David talks about:

Welcome Nitin Mayande,  Co-founder and Chief Scientist at Tellagence.

Nitin's love for science led to launching a startup that changes the face of network intelligence.

In this episode, Nitin talks about: