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Slackbot, Say “Hello” to Watson

Friday, November 4th, 2016

IBM’s marketing, design and engineering teams are using Slack to collaborate and create new cognitive solutions, benefiting all users of the platform, as learnings will be passed on to developers.

This is just one part of IBM’s partnership with Slack, announced at October’s World of Watson in Las Vegas.

“Slack and IBM share the same vision for how AI can transform workplace efficiency,” said David Kenny, IBM Watson’s general manager in a press release. “The degree of leverage we can gain from enhanced cognitive capabilities becomes massive.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSWxZJYxjUs

 

According to Kenny, combining Slack and Watson will make it easier for developers to build cognitive-enabled bots for Slack, propelling productivity.

 

In the same press release, Stewart Butterfield, CEO and co-founder of Slack, said: “This partnership with IBM and the work we are doing with Watson will accelerate our customers’ organizational intelligence and propel workplace productivity in dramatic new ways.”

Butterfield added that he wanted Slack to become better and smarter the more it was used, and “supercharge” people’s ability to find answers.

In pursuit of this goal, Slack will adopt Watson Conversation to improve the accuracy and efficiency of Slackbot, the customer service bot. Watson machine learning will also enable Slackbot to continuously improve its accuracy.

To learn more about IBM Watson’s capabilities, click here.

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Canada Creating Faster Startup-Friendly Work Visas

Thursday, November 3rd, 2016

The Canadian government is developing a new fast-track startup-friendly visa that could be processed in up to 14 days. The intention is to try to solve Canada’s recurring issues with attracting and keeping top-quality talent.

The visa, being developed under the Global Skills Strategy, will be aimed at “low-risk” individuals who have specialized, in-demand skills, or can train Canadian workers in them.

Two kinds of companies—high-growth, and global—will be able to apply for a certain number of visas to recruit overseas. On the government’s side, a dedicated team will process the paperwork.

According to BetaKit, the previous Startup Visa program only accepted 100 people between April 2013 and February 2016. Waiting times for foreign nationals to be granted work visas remain up to six months.

No proposed date for the new, faster, visa system has been set.

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IBM Watson Making Cognitive Businesses a Reality

Wednesday, October 26th, 2016

“It isn’t a world of Watson: it’s a world with Watson,” said IBM’s Chairman, President, and CEO Ginni Rometty at the company’s World of Watson (WoW) conference in Las Vegas today.

The “with” part came to life in a two-hour presentation with multiple executive guest speakers from around the world who all demonstrated the depth and versatility of IBM Watson’s cognitive superpowers.

As IBM Watson pioneers across industries ranging from healthcare to manufacturing have discovered, AI isn’t “Artificial Intelligence.” It’s Augmented Intelligence, which Rometty says is “about man and machine.” Enhancement, not replacement.

IBM Watson’s capability isn’t just an add-on: it works its way into the DNA of your enterprise.

Rometty shared examples of exactly how that manifests:

  • IBM Watson is helping 200 million patients across the world with diagnosis and treatment of illness.
  • It’s pairing customers with insurance options and managing their allergies.
  • In the classroom, IBM Watson is helping teachers target the right teaching plan for students.

In total, IBM Watson’s already working with over 200 million customers.

“You don’t just do cognitive. Your company can become a cognitive business,” says Rometty.   

IBM Watson In Action   

The cross-industry leaders that Ginni Rometty brought to the IBM WoW stage demonstrated IBM Watson’s ability to integrate cognitive into their daily operations.

When GM CEO Mary Barra talked about IBM Watson’s manifestation in the company’s 2017 models, she cemented the idea of AI as augmented intelligence. “Don’t just implement technology for technology’s sake: transform experience to gain customers for life,” she says.

The key to cognitive is in the name of the tech: organizations need to be constantly thinking about what they’re doing with Watson’s abilities, and why.

US Secretary of Education John B. King, Jr. places an extremely high value on teachers and understands exactly what Watson can do in the classroom: work with teachers to help students, making personalized learning a reality in public schools.

It turns out that IBM Watson’s intelligence has an artistic side too, when it’s matched with a beat-making musician as talented as Alex Da Kid. Released on the Friday before World of Watson, “Not Easy” has already hit #1 on Spotify.

IBM Watson is already at work in the healthcare field, eliminating human error while enhancing human perception. For Yitzhak Peterburg, Teva Pharmaceutical’s Chairman of the Board, IBM Watson’s abilities provide a crucial assist in managing the big data demands of 200 million customers.

If one thing is for sure at WoW, it’s that IBM has demonstrated a myriad of use cases for IBM Watson and the power of building a cognitive business. By the end of 2017, the company expects IBM Watson will touch 1 billion consumers globally.

To sign up to IBM Watson and learn more, click here.

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IBM Launches Watson-Enabled Data Platform

Tuesday, October 25th, 2016

The power of machine learning has arrived for the masses, and it comes in the form of a cloud-based platform called IBM Watson Data Platform.

Announced today in Las Vegas at the IBM World of Watson conference, the platform promises to let businesses get more valuable insights, as well as interpret and collaborate with data.

“Watson Data Platform applies cognitive assistance for creating machine learning models, making it far faster to get from data to insight,” said Bob Picciano, SVP of Information & Analytics.

“It also provides one place to access machine learning services and languages, so that anyone, from an app developer to the Chief Data Officer, can collaborate seamlessly to make sense of data, ask better questions, and more effectively operationalize insight.”

Harness Collaboration

The IBM Watson Data Platform uses machine learning to intelligently and automatically build models from structured and unstructured data.

Citing a survey by Harvard Business Review, IBM says 80 percent of companies struggle with allowing employees to collaborate using common data, which in turn impacts a company’s ability to drive business results.

Businesses are siloed. People spend too much time collecting and then cleansing data, or they lack a consistent view of data across departments.

That changes, IBM says, with the announcement of IBM Watson Data Platform, as different areas of the business will have access to a dashboard tailored to their specific needs and speciality.

“Access to data insights are no longer heavily dependent on IT,” Picciano said.

SQL, Python, R, Java, and Scala are currently integrated into the system, as well as more than 20 ecosystem partners including RStudio, and APIs from Keen IO.

Follow TechPORTFOLIO on Twitter for up-to-date news and pictures from IBM World of Watson.

To sign up to IBM Watson and learn more, click here.

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6 Essential Skills of Exceptional Entrepreneurs

Monday, October 24th, 2016

Think about what’s in front of you, not behind. It’s proven to keep you motivated, says Stanford lecturer and author Amy Wilkinson in a talk at this year’s IBM World of Watson.

Wilkinson’s book, The Creator’s Code, is based on more than 200 in-depth interviews with leading founders including those from PayPal, AirBnB and Tesla.

From her interviews she uncovered six essential skills every exceptional entrepreneur lives by:

If you want an example of how powerful these practices can be, you need only look at PayPal. The company spawned 13 men — known as the PayPal Mafia — who have gone on to found some of the most popular tech companies, including YouTube, SpaceX, LinkedIn, Kiva and Square.

IBM World of Watson is in Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, until Thursday, 27 October. Follow TechPORTFOLIO on Twitter for up-to-the-minute coverage.

To learn about what Watson can do for your business, read more here.

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Watson Analytics to Research Heart Rhythm Data

Friday, October 21st, 2016

The Cardiac Arrhythmia Network of Canada (CANet) is accelerating their research with Heart-SIGN, a platform designed with IBM’s Watson Analytics and BigInsights on Cloud at its core.

As neuroscientists working on treatments for Parkinson’s Disease can attest, today’s healthcare researchers are inundated with massive amounts of big data. Heart-SIGN’s ability to synthesize CANet’s findings could reveal discoveries in the field that may have otherwise taken years.

Nathalie Le Prohon, Vice President at IBM Watson Health Life Sciences, says: “The ability for researchers and providers to utilize cognitive tools helps them to spend less time sifting through data and more time gaining insights and delivering transformation where we need it most.”

Millions of Canadians experience some form of arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeats, a condition that can negatively impact productivity and overall quality of life. In some cases, arrhythmia can also lead to sudden cardiac death, resulting in the loss of 40,000 lives a year.

 

 

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Why Fintech Entrepreneurs Should Make Friends with Regulations

Thursday, October 20th, 2016

Want to change the world with your fintech startup? You have to work within the world you have, says MaRS‘s Adam Nanjee.

Regulation is a big part of fintech.

Regulations are not designed to obstruct you or keep the status quo. They protect the economy from harm.

One of the reasons why Canada’s banking system survived the financial crisis is that we have a highly regulated environment.

There’s no carte blanche for a good idea. Following the rules must be part of the DNA of a fintech startup.

The worst thing that can happen to a fintech entrepreneur is they build this great solution, they invest a tremendous amount of capital, and they hit the regulatory wall and get shut down. 

The good thing is, regulators are open to discussion. Adam Nanjee’s fintech hub at MaRS helps make initial connections.

What we’ve seen here in the Canadian landscape is that a lot of fintech startups are actually working with the regulators to develop their solution.

After all, regulators understand that rules that can’t be adapted and applied also can’t respond to change.

If we stifle with all regulations, how does innovation actually happen?

The right time for entrepreneurs to get regulators involved is before they start.

They are spending a lot of time with their lawyers, and their IP patent lawyers, and their regulatory advisors to build the right solution from the beginning.

In Canada, especially, to achieve any sort of scale, you also must work with banks and think beyond your borders.

Once you build a solution domestically, you have to invest capital to build out your solution internationally having that regulatory lens.

Each environment has different rules on reporting, retention of customer data, and risk.

It’s very different operating in Hong Kong than Toronto.

Fintechs that proceed past the idea stage have to then budget time and money around regulation.

As startups scale and raise that capital, you see a larger portion of their capital in fintech dedicated to that regulation component. 

Although the consequences of not working with regulators might be catastrophic…

You can go against regulation and get shut down, you can skirt around it, or you can work with the regulators.

…without them…

We’d have the wild wild west. 

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Toronto Tech Sector Growth Outpaces Canada 2X

Wednesday, October 19th, 2016

A new report from TechToronto, an organization supporting the city’s technology community, says over 400,000 jobs in Toronto in 2016 are related to the tech sector.

The report, How Technology is Changing Toronto Employment, found that:

  • Over the last 5 years, Toronto has grown tech-related jobs by 14.6%, which is two times faster than the rest of the country
  • The Toronto tech ecosystem has a total of 401,000 jobs, making up 15% of all Toronto employment
  • Tech-related jobs earned $24 billion in salaries in 2015, making it one of the highest hourly wage sectors in the city
  • Toronto’s tech ecosystem is projected to add an additional 20,000 jobs by 2020.

https://twitter.com/pwc_tech/status/788160187236425729

Ben Zifkin, CEO of Hubba, a B2B product information network for retailers, said: “This report corroborates what we already know and what the rest of the world is learning – that Toronto excels in technology and that we can develop globally disruptive companies.”

“What we can work on is developing an even more supportive innovation community, so that technology companies and jobs can flourish.”

The report made public policy recommendations including the following:

  • Make the Toronto-Waterloo corridor world-renowned for fintech and machine learning
  • Introduce fast track immigration visa for tech talents
  • Increase enrollment and diversity in post secondary STEM programs
  • Re-distribute government funds from incumbents to scaleups and startups
  • Solve civic problems and strengthen local tech companies via procurement.

Download the full report, How Technology is Changing Toronto Employment, produced in collaboration with PwC, the Innovation Policy Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, and CareerBuilder.

Credit: StartupHere Toronto and Tech Toronto

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Control is the Key to Employees Thriving in Startups

Monday, October 17th, 2016

Control and what we do with it is essential to maintaining good startup culture — whether it’s  trust, respect and autonomy to perform daily work well, or letting go of the company’s reins in order to let staff explore and flourish.

“Everyone wants control in their lives. I don’t think anyone grew up wanting to be an executive assistant,” explained Vancouver-based entrepreneur Jonathan Bixby of Stanley Park Ventures at Tech Vancouver.

Nobody likes to be micromanaged. Founders know this, and having the freedom to create something new and exciting is what drove most of them to create a startup in the first place. Unfortunately, it’s an easy lesson for founders to forget once they’ve laid it all on the line.

Giving staff members more freedom over the work they do, as well as where and how they do it, can pay off in spades in productivity, growth and innovation.

As Bixby says, taking the time to uncover what employees care about when they’re on and off the clock helps founders establish relationships of mutual understanding and respect: “Get a Google spreadsheet, write down all your employee’s names and find out something cool about them that they are passionate about.”

And to most employees, respect is more valuable than foosball tables, a stocked beer fridge and pizza on Fridays, says former Netflix chief talent officer Patty McCord. “All those perks might make people happy, but they don’t make people happy in the same way that being on a great team and doing great work does.”

 

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Watson Takes on Parkinson’s Disease

Friday, October 14th, 2016

IBM Watson, long touted for its potential in healthcare, is being put to work finding a drug to treat Parkinson’s disease.

The Ontario Brain Institute (OBI) and University Health Networks (UHN) in Toronto, Ontario, is adopting IBM Watson for Drug Discovery to analyze existing data with natural language processing and machine learning tools.

One problem that IBM Watson solves for researchers is processing existing Parkinson’s research, and finding previously overlooked connections within research structures. Watson Drug Discovery’s resources include 31 million sources of data.

Dr. Lorraine Kaila, a neurologist at UHN, explains: “The platform gives us the ability to look at connections that researchers might not have found without dedicating weeks or months of time. This includes identifying compounds that we have not previously considered investigating for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.”

“Drug researchers are challenged by the sheer volume and pace of emerging data,” says Lauren O’Donnell, Vice President at IBM Watson Health Life Sciences. “Watson for Drug Discovery empowers researchers with cognitive tools that will help to speed drug discovery.”

According to drug manufacturers’ trade group PhRMA, research for new treatments costs an average of $2.6 billion and takes 10 years. Only 12% of proposed medications make it past a Phase I clinical trial, which tests efficacy and safety.

On average 25 people are diagnosed with Parkinson’s each day, according to the OBI. In Ontario alone, an estimated 285,000 people suffer from some form of neurodegenerative disorder.

Tom Mikkelsen, president and scientific director of the OBI, said: ”This partnership signals the beginning of a new era for neuroscience where researchers can work with data at an unprecedented level of sophistication and speed. We are excited by the impact this could have on people living with Parkinson’s disease.”

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