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AI: the future is here – adapt and embrace or move aside – Wellington – 11 October 2018

What

AI: the future is here – adapt and embrace or move aside

Panel discussion about the implications of artificial intelligence for New Zealand organisations.

Panel member bios

Will Browne has been developing artificial intelligence algorithms to learn through their experiences for 24 years in the UK and New Zealand. This includes disembodied tasks, such as data mining, and embodied systems, such as robot navigation. His passion is developing artificial cognitive systems that perceive, represent, reason, learn and act in their problem domain. How these agents can learn from small problems and apply their learnt knowledge to larger-scale and related problems is particularly fascinating. He has presented invited talks on advanced machine learning in MIT, Boston and Microsoft Research, Seattle as well as on machine consciousness in Nokia, Europe. Will is a co-leader of a national science challenge developing intelligent robots for the workplace.
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Neil Dodgson was, for twenty years, head of the Graphics & Interaction Research Group at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. In 2016, he returned to New Zealand to be Programme Director of Victoria’s Computer Graphics Programme and to bring skills that complemented the already strong computer graphics research group in Victoria’s School of Engineering & Computer Science. He chairs Victoria’s pan-university Digital Futures research theme, which considers how technology will affect society in all its aspects.
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Akash Jattan has more than 10 years’ experience in leadership, technology and portfolio management in Cloud and Big Data. Taking multiple products from conception to delivery with five products currently in market. He built Australia’s first security focused ‘Big Data Platform as a Service’ product in Telstra. In Qrious as Head of Products/platforms, he successfully implemented the ingestion of 3BN events per day from Sparks mobile networks into a big data stack to service people movement insights and launched a Hadoop-as-a-service product to market. Currently works for Revera helping leverage Big Data technology and helping customers understand and adopt big data solutions in the cloud. He is passionate about technology and product management by delivery value through data.
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Torrance Mayberry is an Information Technology, science and data engineering professional with more than 20 years of experience. He has developed enterprise software for Business Analytics, Data Warehousing, and Enterprise Resource Planning for PeopleSoft and Informatica Corporation in Silicon Valley. He has developed software with firms like Dynamic Research Corporation, Metis Associates and Annie E Casey Foundation. He has run business intelligence and data warehouse units at InterContinental Hotels Group, General Electric, Westpac Bank New Zealand Limited, and led the data engineering and data scientist pursuits at start-up Antuit, a Goldman Sachs portfolio company. More recently, he has been Data and AI Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft innovating and driving solutions with partners to generate repeatable customer value and profitability.
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Moderator bio:

Abinesh is currently the Client Strategy Director at leading technology talent recruitment firm Potentia Limited, following a successful stint as the Commercial Manager at Health Benefits Limited where he was the Lead Negotiator for the National Infrastructure Platform Programme. This strategic initiative drew upon Abinesh’s significant knowledge, experience and network across the technology domain and the health sector gained through over seven years of senior leadership tenure at healthAlliance (a shared services organisation serving the four northern region District Health Boards’s and one of the largest ICT operations in the country).

When and Where

Rutherford House
23 Lambton Quay, Wellington

Schedule:

5:30 – 6:00 networking, drinks and nibbles
6:00 – 7:00 panel
7:00 – 7:30 networking, drinks and nibbles

How Much

Free

More

Meetup event.

IT Conversations Meetup.

Sponsors: Potentia Limited (http://potentia.co.nz) and Victoria Business School (https://www.victoria.ac.nz/vbs)