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Rise of the Machines: The Business of AI
When
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
6:00pm – 7:00pm – Networking and Refreshment
7:00pm – 8:30pm – Panel Discussion and Q/A
Where
Arbuckle Lounge and Bishop Auditorium at Stanford Business School
(click for direction & parking information)
Event Description:
The state of AI today is thriving. Google is one of the best examples of how it applies AI to data mining and text processing for its search engine. Businesses are increasingly adopting AI-based applications to replace human labor as evidenced by self-checkout counters and EZPass toll booths that can essentially do these tasks faster, cheaper and more effectively.
Recently “Adam” became the first automated robot to complete a science project in its entirety from hypothesis, to experiment, to reformulated hypothesis — with virtually no human intervention (link). The U.S. military went from using 0 robots in 2003 to now almost 20,000 ground and air robots. DARPA announced plans for an intelligent, long-distance flying drone that refuels itself by consuming biological matter in its path (link).
Software is being modeled on the idiosyncrasies of the human brain and has reached a point where it can learn our preferences and anticipate needs. How far are we from realizing self aware, self-sustaining technologies? Today we use computers for entertaining, information, socially connecting and communicating. AI systems, however, are on track to evolve from applications to co-collaborators that provide us with automated feedback and advanced correction capabilities.
This month’s event hosts leading companies and thought leaders in AI to discuss the current state of artificial intelligence, including autonomous robotics, learning systems and machine/human fusion and asks:
• What are the business opportunities in AI?
• Who’s investing in the space?
• What applications are most needed?
• What are the opportunities for entrepreneurs?
• How is AI being used to drive competitive advantage?
• What business models are likely to work?
• What’s next?
Check out this cool video of replanning and perception from one of our panelist companies, Willow Garage!
Come join us to find out about the next wave of AI-driven companies and learn how entrepreneurs are leveraging AI to drive business opportunities.
Online Registration is now Closed!
Last-minute tickets are available, first-come first-serve, at the door.
Moderator
Sven Strohband – Partner, MDV
Panelists
Dag Kittlaus – Co-founder and CEO, Siri
Paul Rhodes – CEO, Evolved Machines
Steve Cousins – President and CEO, Willow Garage
George John – CEO, Rocket Fuel, Inc.
Rob Haitani – Chief Product Officer, VitaminD
Bios
Sven Strohband – Partner, MDV
Sven Strohband brings engineering and operationalexperience to the MDV team and supports the partnership in sourcing andevaluating investments in the areas of software, systems and materials.
Prior to MDV, Sven spent three years at the Volkswagen ElectronicsResearch Laboratory (ERL) in Palo Alto where he was responsible fordiscovering new materials and electronics technologies for automotiveapplications. He was also the Stanford Racing team’s lead engineer. Theteam developed a robot that successfully navigated132 miles of unknownterrain fully autonomously in the fastest time, winning the 2005 DARPAGrand Challenge.
Sven has authored numerous papers on the simulation of materialssystems and authored various patents for novel automotive electronicsapplications.Sven received a doctorate and master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. He also earned a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University.
Dag Kittlaus – Co-founder and CEO, Siri
Siri’s CEO is Dag Kittlaus, who founded the company as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at SRI.
A serial innovator and consumer wireless internet veteran of 10 years in Scandinavia and the US, Dag is working on creating his third consecutive mobile internet product with over a million users.
Dag has held leadership roles as VP of Consumer Internet Services at Scandinavian telecom giant Telenor Mobile, and several consumer product groups at Motorola including GM of xProducts and founder and GM of Motorola’s Interactive Media Group. He conceived and launched Screen3, a breakthrough consumer mobile application currently used by millions of users and adopted by Cingular, China Mobile, and Telefonica.
Paul Rhodes – CEO, Evolved Machines
Dr. Rhodes has been a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University and is the founder of Evolved Machines, Inc., a research organization pioneering the synthesis of artificial neural circuits and their application to olfaction and visual object recognition. The group is developing the first synthetic neural arrays which wire themselves by simulating neural circuit growth in 3-dimensions, and is the first company to harness the power of programmable GPU’s for the simulation of neural computation, now achieving > 100-fold acceleration of the computing power of conventional cores. The company’s goal is the development of the first generation of devices truly based on brain circuitry, pioneering the fusion of neuroscience and engineering to develop new categories of machines which embed some of the capacities of biological neural systems.
Dr. Rhodes received a Ph.D. and M.S. in Neuroscience under Dr. Rodolfo Llinas at NYU Medical School, and received an M.S. in Physics from Stanford University after graduating with an A.B. in Physics, Magna cum Laude, from Harvard University.
Steve Cousins – President and CEO, Willow Garage
Steve Cousins is a seasoned executive, entrepreneur and innovator with a strong track record for managing research and development organizations and realizing a significant return on investment. Prior to joining Willow Garage, Steve was the senior manager of the User-Focused Systems Research Group at the IBM Almaden Research Center, one of the top human-computer interaction research groups in the world. Earlier, Steve managed the Advanced Systems Development Laboratory at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and a researcher at Interval Research Corporation. Steve holds a PhD in CS from Stanford University, and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Washington University.
George John – CEO, Rocket Fuel, Inc.
George H. John is CEO of Rocket Fuel Inc., www.rocketfuelinc.com, a company full of rocket scientists who are building the world’s best technology for predicting consumer response to online advertising. Rocket Fuel was founded in 2008 by industry veterans from Yahoo! and DoubleClick. Rocket Fuel’s advertiser-focused ad network has run campaigns for major brands like Microsoft, Adobe, Nintendo, and many more.
Prior to Rocket Fuel, George led groups at IBM, E.piphany, salesforce.com, and most recently Yahoo!, where he managed behavioral targeting, recommendations, and click fraud. As a kid, George was overly influenced by “Star Trek,” which led to a short-lived interest in model rocketry (eyebrows grew back) and a lifelong interest in Artificial Intelligence. George earned BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Computer Science from Stanford, specializing in AI and statistics. During his graduate studies, he won a National Science Foundation fellowship and worked at NASA, earning his “rocket scientist” credentials.
Rob Haitani – Chief Product Officer, VitaminD
Rob Haitani co-founded Vitamin D in 2007 to develop solutions for the next generation of intelligent computing. Prior to Vitamin D, Rob was the Product Design Architect at Palm and part of the founding team at Handspring. He has been awarded 35 patents for designing the user interface of the original Palm OS, the PalmPilot and the Treo smartphone. Rob began his career in the computer video and display divisions of Sony in Tokyo, Japan. He holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Yale.
Online Registration is now Closed!
Last-minute tickets are available, first-come first-serve, at the door.
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