The Accessible AI Podcast

Naren Thiagarajan is a software engineer and entrepreneur with a background in infrastructure and scalable backends. He has worked at Stanford Systems Lab and Oracle, and served as Engineering Director at Location Labs.

 

More recently, Naren has co-founded FloydHub, where he currently serves as CTO. FloydHub is an AWS-hosted cloud service for machine learning. It offers PaaS with fully configured CPU and GPU environments for deep learning, and includes popular frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch and Keras.

 

 

Highlights:

How Naren started in AI and machine learning.

How to educate yourself about machine learning via the internet.

Cost-saving solutions on the FloydHub platform.

How FloydHub hosts jobs.

How FloydHub plans to help democratize AI.

Good machine learning projects for beginners.

 

Links and Resources:

Naren on Twitter: https://twitter.com/narenst

Naren on Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/naren-thiagarajan

Naren on Medium: https://medium.com/@narenst

Naren on AngelList: https://angel.co/narenst

FloydHub website: https://www.floydhub.com/

First Level (sponsor): https://firstlevel.io/

The Accessible AI Podcast is hosted by Yevgeni Zolotorevsky and produced by Shola Abidoye. Copyright Meta Training OU, 2018

Lars Maaløe is a young entrepreneur with an impressive background in machine learning and computer engineering. He attended the Technical University of Denmark, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in Computer Software Engineering, as well as an MS and Ph.D. in Machine Learning.

Lars’s academic research involved deep belief networks, language recognition, and semi-supervised machine learning. He is now the co-founder and CTO of Corti, an AI decision-making and assistance solution that is being tested in the healthcare space.

 

Highlights:

How AI addresses the needs of the healthcare industry.

Applications of audio and language recognition in healthcare AI.

How Lars applies his research to existing problems in healthcare technology.

The three basic disciplines that form a foundation for machine learning education.

The importance of competition when learning new technology.

Lars’s approach to team-building in business.

How to excel in machine learning with a little technical background.

Hype and terminology in the machine learning industry.

 

Links and Resources:

Lars on GitHub: https://github.com/larsmaaloee

Lars on Twitter: https://twitter.com/larsmaaloe?lang=en

Lars on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larsmaaloe/

Lars on Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/corti#section-investors

Lars on AngelList: https://angel.co/lars-maaloe

Corti: http://www.corti.ai/

First Level (sponsor): https://firstlevel.io/

The Accessible AI Podcast is hosted by Yevgeni Zolotorevsky and produced by Shola Abidoye. Copyright Meta Training OU, 2018

Gary Fowler has been advising international companies and startups for over 25 years. He held executive positions at successful companies like ClickSoftware, Mirantis, Siemens and Hewlett Packard, founded Fowler International and Broadiant, and co-founded GVA LaunchGurus. He is a TEDx speaker internationally and speaks frequently in Eastern Europe (where his work has won him several awards).

Gary currently serves as President and CEO of Findo, an AI productivity company based in Delaware and Menlo Park, California. Findo is a smart search assistant that employs natural language processing to help users locate information locally, in the cloud and on the internet. The Findo team is made up of professionals and PhDs from around the world with vast experience in AI, NLP and search engine technology.

 

Highlights:

Gary’s background as a Silicon Valley veteran.

Why it’s important to capitalize on trends early on.

The value of AI in an information-saturated culture.

Findo’s approach to email management.

How Findo plans to use AI moving forward.

How to organize professionals of different backgrounds in AI business.

Networking advice for marketers and tech professionals.

The difference between success and failure.

How to know when to change course in business.

The importance of teamwork.

 

Links and Resources:

Findo: https://findo.com/

Findo on Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/findo-io

Gary Fowler on Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/gary-a--fowler

Gary Fowler on Venturebeat: https://venturebeat.com/author/gary-fowler-findo/

Gary Fowler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fowlerinternational/

TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEBb8lSqxf0

First Level (sponsor): https://firstlevel.io/

The Accessible AI Podcast is hosted by Yevgeni Zolotorevsky and produced by Shola Abidoye. Copyright Meta Training OU, 2018

Bryton Shang has led several venture-backed startups. He built deep learning algorithms to diagnose cancer as CTO of HistoWiz, a biotechnology company.

Currently, Bryton is a Founder & CEO of Aquabyte, one of the few companies applying machine learning/computer vision to directly solve the world’s food sustainability issues.

He also co-founded iQ License (a brand licensing platform) and Nikao Investments (an algorithmic trading firm).

 

Highlights:

Applications of machine learning in aquaculture.

Bryton’s background in finance and algorithmic trading.

Bryton’s history with other startups prior to Aquabyte.

Applications of algorithmic trading in different tech fields.

The democratization of machine learning in the modern age.

Margins of error in machine learning, their consequences, and ramifications.

The ‘first principle’ approach to AI enterprise.

The diverse expertise behind deep learning at Aquabyte.

Deep learning education resources.

How to apply machine learning skills in business.

 

Links and Resources:

Aquabyte: https://www.aquabyte.no/index.html

Aquabyte on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aquabyteai/

Aquabyte on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aquabyte/

Aquabyte on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aquabyteai

Aquabyte on AngelList: https://angel.co/aquabyte/

Aquabyte on Medium: https://medium.com/aquabyteai

Bryton Shang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brytonshang/

Bryton Shang on Twitter: https://twitter.com/brytonshang

Bryton Shang on Medium: https://medium.com/@brytonshang

First Level (sponsor): https://firstlevel.io/

The Accessible AI Podcast is hosted by Yevgeni Zolotorevsky and produced by Shola Abidoye. Copyright Meta Training OU, 2018

Emrah Gultekin is a Turkish-American entrepreneur. Since 2015, Emrah has been co-founder and CEO of Chooch Intelligence Technologies Co., a Silicon Valley-based artificial intelligence startup. He also writes a sci-fi short fiction series called Another Realm.

Chooch is an AI-based search and discovery platform that helps publishers monetize their content. The Chooch API recognizes objects and concepts in videos and images from pre-trained models.

 

Highlights:

Chooch company mission and history.

Chooch’s unique products for different industries and experience levels.

Predictions for visual search and recognition technology.

Suggestions on how to get into AI training.

The current state of enterprise AI and neural networks in business.

The slow progress of usable and scalable AI products.

The need for diverse expertise in training perceptions.

Links and Resources:

Chooch: http://chooch.ai/

Emrah Gultekin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emrah-gultekin-6123ab1/

Emrah Gultekin on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emrah_Gultekin

First Level (sponsor): https://firstlevel.io/

The Accessible AI Podcast is hosted by Yevgeni Zolotorevsky and produced by Shola Abidoye. Copyright Meta Training OU, 2018

Dr. Rodney Sappington is an entrepreneur, clinical data scientist and researcher based in San Francisco, California. He is focused on building world-class machine learning products, improving clinical outcomes and growing companies at scale. He is a very well known speaker both nationally and internationally.

Dr. Sappington is the Founder and CEO of Acesio Inc., a company that is committed to building a better future with applied machine learning technology. Their products and solutions include early diagnosis, clinical trials, disease-prediction and digital health.

 

Highlights:

Dr. Sappington’s background, including his professional and academic paths, as well as his attraction to machine learning as a method to deal with “harm.”

Positive and negative outcomes of machine learning.

How to differentiate useful information from hype in the machine learning space.

The current state of machine learning in medical technology.

Acesio’s goals, methods and processes.

The cross-disciplinary nature of data science.

How to begin your journey into the field of machine learning (no matter what your background is).

Links and Resources:

Dr. Sappington on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodney-sappington-ph-d-97ab235/

Acesio: https://www.acesio.org/

First Level (sponsor): https://firstlevel.io/

The Accessible AI Podcast is hosted by Yevgeni Zolotorevsky and produced by Shola Abidoye. Copyright Meta Training OU, 2018

Alex Ermolaev has been involved in the software industry for 20 years, including AI-specific experience at Bell Labs, Microsoft, several startups and now Nvidia. He is currently a leading AI software developer and works with groundbreaking companies that are implementing incredible AI solutions across several domains.

NVIDIA is an American technology company and the world leader in visual computing. In 1999, NVIDIA sparked the growth of the PC gaming market and more recently has contributed a great deal to AI and deep learning technology.

 

Highlights:

The deep learning revolution and deep learning as a foundation for AI.

How artificial neural networks relate to organic human brains and nervous systems.

The current state of AI business implementation.

The language and terminology of AI technology.

The three types of people needed on any AI team.

What kinds of problems AI can currently solve?

Simplicity and nuance in deep learning models.

AI’s effects on the human labor force and productivity.

What business problems AI can solve.

Links and Resources:Alex Ermolaev on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexermolaev/AI at NVIDIA: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/deep-learning-ai/Slideshare presentation: https://www.slideshare.net/AlexErmolaev/odsc-presentation-putting-deep-learning-to-work-by-alex-ermolaev-nvidiaFirst Level (sponsor): https://firstlevel.io/

The Accessible AI Podcast is hosted by Yevgeni Zolotorevsky and produced by Shola Abidoye. Copyright Meta Training OU, 2018