Innovation and Entrepreneurship Panel

Moderator: Noriko Takezaki (Basis Technology)
Panelists: Andy Palmer (Tamr), Jonathan Epstein (Credorax), Takuya Matsutani (Project Nippon), Tim Rowe (Cambridge Innovation Center), Stephen Jones (SineWave)

Tim Romero’s popular podcast “Disrupting Japan” depicts a menacing Godzilla looming over the Tokyo skyline. Are Japanese start-ups perceived as a giant, devastating monster? Or are they, as Tim calls them, “the most creative and dynamic group of people in the world”? Japanese entrepreneurs are having greater success entering the American market than ever before. What about the other direction? How should American entrepreneurs be viewing opportunities in Japan? What do U.S. startups and Japan-based enterprise partners need to understand about aligning assumptions and priorities for successful joint ventures? This group of panelists has incredible depth and breadth of experience from working all over the world with the early adopters and innovators.

Encoding Discourse: Novel Interfaces for Collaborative Decision-making

The Tactile Matrix, or Tangible Interactive Matrix is a system for an illuminated, machine-readable matrix of objects that performs real-time computation and dynamic projection-mapping. The Tactile Matrix is applied to many research projects to make complex systems intuitive and approachable for a more broad range of stakeholders.

Illuminated, tangible-interactive matrices have immediate applications as collaborative computation tools for users who want to leverage matrix-based mathematical modeling techniques within a friendly and accessible environment. The system is designed as an open source kit of both off-the-shelf items (such as Lego) and components that are inexpensively fabricated with standard equipment (such as laser cutters).

The Tactile Matrix is designed to (a) make matrix-based mathematical methods more accessible and intuitive to users who otherwise do not have access to such tools and/or (b) provide an interactive narrative and story-telling device for experts who wish to present or explain matrix-based concepts to non-experts.

The Dirty Little Secret of Enterprise Data

Bad data plumbing wastes time, money and opportunity. Fix it, and your data scientists can focus less on cleaning and preparing data, and more on driving analytic decisions and outcomes.
In this presentation, serial entrepreneur and Tamr Co-Founder Andy Palmer exposes the dirty secret of messy, siloed, enterprise data: Bad plumbing, which forces data scientists to spend 80-90% of their effort cleaning and preparing data instead of actually analyzing it. Palmer shares how Fortune 500 companies are fixing their plumbing and gaining $100s of millions of value by automating the collection, organization and preparation of enterprise-wide data.

  • On the savings side, Tamr is working with financial and procurement execs at GE to leverage analytics for spend, supply chain, and logistics
  • On the growth side, Tamr is working with Toyota Motors Europe to provide the best products and services in an innovative way. TME saw unifying data as the core component to deeply understanding their customers.

In this talk Palmer will discuss the blueprint for these successful projects and will outline how these teams have developed systematic, scalable approaches to preparing data for analysis across the enterprise.

The Investor’s View of Emerging Data Marketspace in Japan and the U.S.

From the perspective of an investor evaluating big data analytics startups in both the US and Japan, this talk provides an overview of both the opportunities and threats facing companies in this space. We’ll also discuss the universal characteristics of the emerging data market spaces and the differences between the US and Japan in how big data has emerged and is evolving. Diving into topics especially relevant to the Japanese marketplace are differing interpretations of personal privacy rights on the consumer side and a greater awareness of a data company’s role within the larger business-to-business ecosystem.

From BI to Predictive Analytics: Should You Bring an Umbrella if Rain is Predicted?

In just a few years, predictive analytics has gone from an exotic technique to a competitive weapon. Successful deployments combine machine learning with big data to get to the best business outcomes. Dr. Ingo Mierswa of RapidMiner will cover the value of predictive analytics as you move from business intelligence (BI) to predictive and prescriptive analytics. He will demonstrate the value of advanced analytics by looking at data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, uncovering interesting insights, including what are the biggest influence factors for fatality in accidents? Do helmets help? What is the impact of alcohol? And importantly: What car should you buy to reduce your personal fatality risk? And finally, Dr. Mierswa will show how you can get started with predictive analytics in your own organization.

Artificial Intelligence Sparks the Fourth Industrial Revolution

AI is here and already transforming many industries. At AI Business, we specialize in reporting on how artificial intelligence is impacting business around the world, and in the past 12 months, demand for AI in the enterprise has increased exponentially. Our recent survey of Fortune 500 businesses showed that 32% are already implementing in some form of AI, and 82% of those who weren’t, are planning on doing so within the next 12-18 months. The world’s largest companies are investing well over half a billion dollars into AI-centric research, and this upward trend is only going to continue.

In this talk we will discuss the tangible impact of AI on core verticals including transport, financial services and retail who are among the earliest adopters of AI. We will cover case studies from large companies such including American Airlines, BoA, and Macy’s who are some of the earliest adopters and advocates of the advancement of AI.