Finance, Fin-Tech, AI, Enterprise Tech and Digital Transformation

How to Get Started with AI - Best Practices from 4 Industry Experts

AI EMERJ

Artificial Intelligence in Industry

The Islamic finance industry is emerging as a crucial component of the future global financial architecture. Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education is launching a new programme focused on the sector.

Dr Kamal Munir says Islamic banks weathered the financial crisis better and outperformed all conventional banks. Their unique services are attracting investors and clients in many parts of the world outside their traditional areas.

Islamic finance – conservative, safe and growing dramatically

The Islamic finance industry is facing a great future, not only because it offers a stable banking system, but also because its benefits are being realised by a greater number of people.

Launching his new Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education programme on Islamic finance, Dr Kamal Munir, Reader in Strategy & Policy at Cambridge Judge Business School, says the British government's move to issue an Islamic bond is good news for the industry.

Islamic finance: the future is great

In this podcast series we go behind the scenes to give you a feel for what it's really like to work in some of the most coveted careers and companies. In this podcast Cambridge MBA Ajay Arora (ex-BBC) is joined by classmates that have joined the programme from various finance backgrounds.

So you want to work in…finance

What does it mean to tune an algorithm, how does it matter in a business context, and what are the approaches being developed today when it comes to tuning algorithms?&nbsp;This week's guest helps us answer these questions and more. CEO and Co-Founder Scott Clark&nbsp;of SigOpt takes time to explain the dynamics of tuning, goes into some of the cutting-edge&nbsp;methods for getting tuning done, and shares advice&nbsp;on how businesses using machine learning algorithms&nbsp;can continue to refine and adjust their parameters&nbsp;in order to glean greater results.

Tuning Machine Learning Algorithms with Scott Clark

Sales forecasting is big business. If you can better predict how much of a certain product or service you will sell in a given day, you can better stock inventory, better staff your facilities, and ultimately keep more margin in your business's accounts. This week on AI in Industry we interview Dr. John-Paul B Clarke, professor at Georgia Tech and co-founder / Chief Scientist at Pace (previously called "Prix"). Dr. Clarke shares details about how sales predictions are done today, and what AI advancements may allow for in helping businesses sell everything from groceries to hotel rooms. Read the full interview article online at:&nbsp; techemergence.com/ai-sales-forecasting-works-matters

AI for Sales Forecasting - How it Works and Where it Matters

The anti-bullying movement has been full throttle for 18 years since Columbine shooting in 1999. The efforts to stop students from becoming victims of bullying have been solely focused on changing the world around the victim to create a less hostile environment. This has failed. 

Brooks Gibbs has flipped the approach to bullying and empowers victims to be emotionally resilient so they are not hurt in the first place. This is a simple solution to a complex problem and the only approach that can keep children from killing themselves or others in retaliation.

So we will be contrasting a direct versus indirect approach to help kids. A legal versus psychological approach. 

More on brooks here: https://www.brooksgibbs.com/ 
and his programme here: https://brooks-gibbs.mykajabi.com/store/97335cvs

EP 87: Raising Resilience, Emotional Resilience in a Snowflake Generation with Brooks Gibbs

From Buddhist monks to the early stages of psychology, attention has been deemed a vital element of success.

In a world vying for our attention, if we can become masters of this attention, we can lead happier more present lives.

Dr Joseph Cardillo is this week’s guest. He is a martial artist, doctor and author of: ’Body Intelligence - Harness Your Body's Energies for Your Best Life’, ‘The Five Seasons’, ‘Your Playlist Can Change Your Life’,  ‘Be Like Water’, ‘Bow to Life’ and the focus of today’s show Can I Have Your Attention? How to Think Fast, Find Your Focus and Sharpen Your Concentration’.

We explore some of the attention building exercises and processes outlined in his book and how we can reset our increasing attention deficit. We discuss how we can maximise our attention at work, in key moments where we are about to “lose our mind”. 

We discuss how we can give our children the tools for better sleep as well as ourselves. We touch on how we can be victims of unintentional bias. Finally, Joseph emphasises the merits of meditation and the myriad benefits it can give us.

You can find out more about Joe and find all his books here:
http://www.josephcardillo.com/book-products/

EP 89: How to Think Fast, Find Your Focus and Sharpen Your Concentration with Joseph Cardillo PhD

Dale Archer M.D. is a Psychiatrist and Founder/CEO of The Institute for Neuropsychiatry and NYT bestselling author of two great books: ‘The ADHD Advantage’ and ‘Better than Normal’. 

We talk to Dale about how ADHD can be a huge advantage if we society reframes ADHD-ers to see it as an advantage and not a sickness. We talk about the perfect storm of overdiagnosis, the profits from ADHD medication and trigger-happy prescriptions of ADHD drugs. 

We talk about how the ADHD brain works and is challenged by our one-size-fits-all education system. 

We talk about the ADHD gifts of resilience, “Bingo-Brain, non-linear thinking and multi-tasking. 

Dale shares some tips for parents of ADHD-ers and we celebrate some of the heroes of ADHD. 

You can find out more about Dale Archer and his work, including where to buy his books here: http://drdalearcher.com/

EP 90: The ADHD Advantage: What You Thought Was a Diagnosis May Be Your Greatest Strength

“It is time we focus less on our hardware and more on our humanware.” - Larry D. Rosen PhD. Dr Larry Rosen is the best-selling author of multiple books including ones we will talk about today: iDisorder and The Distracted Mind, which touch on the disorders we are experiencing, amplified by technology and why we are behaving the way we do.

We talk:

The state of distraction

The increasing anxiety experienced

The multitude of scientific studies on attention spans iDisorders and how anxiety has surpassed depression and the no.1 disorder for the youth

Why we keep checking our phones

The tools and strategies to counteract poor attention and focus

Sleep deprivation and sleep debts

How napping is not enough

How our brain works and how it flushes toxic chemicals

Strategies to sleep better

Music can help us calm down

How psychological problems form in technology

The attention economy and social networks

How parents can counteract iDisorders in their children

How parents can counteract their own iDisorders

The effect of first-person shooter games on the mind

The multitasking myth Instant gratification in children

The challenge of single screening

The current challenge of focus

More about Larry Rosen and his books here: http://drlarryrosen.com/topics/books/

Talks here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivyQtk-5OZM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0OqA0pmAag&t=2s

Psychology Today Blog: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/experts/larry-d-rosen-phd

EP 98: The Distracted Mind, Attention, Focus, iDisorders with Larry D. Rosen PhD

“I struck a match and I didn’t know how much tinder was around” – Keith Conners

At the current rate, in 2017, half a million American children will be taken to their doctors and be newly diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Many of them will receive thoughtful and reasonable evaluations and benefit from medication. Another sizable number will be seen by casual clinicians who either bypass the child’s real problems or give in to his frustrated parents and teachers. 

Some of the adolescents will be faking ADHD just to get Adderall for themselves or others. Whatever the actual breakdown, there will be 500,000 new diagnostic visits, millions of follow-ups, tens of millions of pills, and hundreds of millions in sales. Lots of business for everyone.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) will soon be the most frequently diagnosed chronic condition among children, surpassing asthma. Yet research shows that ADHD can't be that prevalent.

On this week’s show, we talk to the author of ADHD Nation, acclaimed New York Times journalist, Pulitzer prize nominee Alan Schwarz.

Alan takes us behind the scenes to tell the full story of this billion-dollar industry. 
We talk about the history of ADHD, the history of diagnosis, the marketing of drugs and the mishandling of diagnosis. We also discuss the fake diagnosis problem where pressurized college students are taking ADHD drugs as amphetamines to get through high-pressure college exams. 

You can find out more about Alan here:
https://www.alanschwarz.net/

EP 114: ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, Amphetamine Abuse, Epidemics with Alan Schwarz

As it turns out, often times terms like predictive analytics and data science are used incorrectly. By the end of this podcast, you'll have greater clarity on five potentially vague AI and data science terms that are sometimes overused in conversations about AI in the enterprise. This week, I introduce you to German Sanches, who focused his PhD on NLP and has done a lot of AI work in business. He also helps us with our research projects. This episode is all about addressing use-cases in reference to five terms that a lot of folks get wrong.

Five AI and Data Science Terms People Get Wrong

One of the best conversations I ever had on the topic of AI business strategy on the podcast was with the guest I've brought back this week: Madhu Shekar, Head of Digital Innovation for Amazon Internet Services in Bangalore. I wanted to do a deeper session with Madhu, who has seen a lot of companies go from no AI to beginning with AI, about where to start with AI adoption. How do companies build the expertise and experience with AI that lets them scale it to their organization? He also talks about how to prepare realistically for AI, including data requirements, integration times, and more.&nbsp;

AI Business Strategy Basics - Critical Insights on AI Adoption

Building an AI strategy - there's hardly anything more vague and open-ended than that. Business leaders have probably gotten the idea that they should develop one, but where should they start? That's what we talk about this week with Charles Martin, PhD. Martin talks about how to go about starting an AI strategy, what to avoid, and the challenges and struggles of applying AI at existing businesses. Also, Martin discusses what business leaders should ignore and what business leaders should tune into and prioritize for an effective AI strategy that will propel them toward success in the coming years.

How to Get Started With an Effective AI Strategy

This week, we interview Jay Budzik, CTO at ZestFinance, about where AI applies to the world of auto-lending. We speak with Budzik about how underwriting and credit scoring is evolving as a result of advances in machine learning. In addition, we talk about how companies might solve the "black box" of machine learning in finance, particularly how ZestFinance is focusing on transparent models. The financial sector has to contend with complex regulations that prevent certain information from being leveraged in credit models. It can be near impossible to determine how machine learning comes to the conclusions it does, but ZestFinance claims their software in part solves this problem.

How Lenders Can Win More Business with Machine Learning

When we polled our audience about what they were interested in, the most selected response was "business intelligence." As a follow-up, we asked them what business intelligence meant to them, and their responses boiled down to anything about understanding the data businesses are already collecting. That kind of broad definition gets to the heart of the confusion surrounding the differences between business intelligence and artificial intelligence. The line is starting to get blurry.&nbsp; Our guest this week is Elif Tutuk, Senior Director at Qlik. Tutuk talks about how business intelligence is evolving and how we might define it now that a lot of BI is becoming AI. Tutuk discusses where AI is making its way into business intelligence and what that might enable for businesses. Read our comprehensive definition of machine learning for business leaders here:&nbsp;https://bit.ly/2Ya2NxK

What's the Difference Between Business Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence? - With Elif Tutuk, Senior Director at Qlik Research

This episode of the AI in industry podcast is all about where the rubber meets the road for AI in Insurance. We interview Jerry Overton,&nbsp;Head of AI and a Fellow at DXC Technology. He speaks to us about his experience implementing AI in insurance, about where there's real traction with AI in insurance, and where there's only hype. In particular, Overton discusses how anomaly detection technology is a natural fit for AI in the insurance sector. This is the last episode of its kind on AI in Industry. Starting next Tuesday, we'll be kicking off a new format for the show. Each month, we'll focus on a specific theme, and in August, we're focusing on AI adoption in the enterprise. We hope you'll join us. &nbsp;

Where AI is Driving Value in Insurance (and Where It's Not) - With Jerry Overton, Head of AI and Fellow at DXC Technology

It's the first episode of the new style of AI in Industry, in which we spend a month at a time on a specific theme. This month is AI adoption. This week we speak with Vlad Sejnoha at Glasswing Ventures, an AI-focused VC firm. Sejnoha spent many years as the CTO at Nuance Communications. He talks to us about the table stakes AI insights the C-suite have to know and the dangers of relying entirely on consulting firms and vendor companies for these insights. In addition, Sejnoha discusses the need for a "BS-o-meter" for when someone is making a claim about AI to determine if it's real or hype. Lastly, Sejnoha discusses how he would go about choosing a first AI project.

Table Stakes AI Insights for the Enterprise - with Vlad Sejnoha of Glasswing Ventures

This week we speak with David Carmona, General Manager of AI at Microsoft. Carmona discusses&nbsp;how redefining a business process is a very different kind of AI adoption project than working on something that is horizontal. He discusses how to attack both of these scenarios, which to handle first, and why.&nbsp; In addition, Carmona talks about proprietary data and things that are close to your own IP. How do you take advantage of the real strategic data value within your own organization? How should you be thinking about that differently? Carmona poses three different questions to determine where those valuable opportunities are for you.

Critical Questions to Ask Before Adopting Artificial Intelligence - With David Carmona of Microsoft

This week, we speak with Jan Neumann, Senior Director of Applied AI Research at Comcast. Comcast is an enormous company; it has lots of data, lots of application areas for AI, and a lot of opportunity for confusion about AI. As such, Neumann speaks with us about scaling AI expertise in the enterprise. Neumann talks about a very strong distinction between software and AI and how to think through problems to determine whether or not it's a software problem or an AI problem. He also talks about scaling the problem-solving abilities of business experts in the organization. Lastly, Neumann talks about his ideas for how to determine a first AI initiative.

Scaling AI Best-Practices in the Enterprise - with Jan Neumann of Comcast

This week we interview Jan Kautz, Vice President of Learning and Perception Research at NVIDIA. Kautz talks about what people underestimate when they start an AI initiative. In addition, he emphasizes the critical value of data storage. Kautz dives into&nbsp;the importance of getting started with an AI project when you already have a barometer of success. Essentially, he talks about why it's important to select a first AI project in an area where you already have a way of measuring success. Learn more about AI adoption in our full report,  Getting Started With AI: Proven Best Practices for AI Adoption.

Misconceptions About AI Adoption, and How to Overcome Them - with Jan Kautz of NVIDIA

This is the final episode in the month-long series on getting started with AI. In this episode, Emerj CEO Daniel Faggella breaks down the key insights from all four of this month's interviews, distilling them into core best-practices for getting started with artificial intelligence in business. In addition, Daniel discusses insights from our newest report: Getting Started with AI: Proven Best-Practices for AI Adoption

Getting Started with AI, Best-Practices - With Daniel Faggella of Emerj

This is the final episode of our series on the ROI of AI. This week is the monthly analyst call, in which Emerj CEO Daniel Faggella breaks down some of the key themes from this month's interviews. In particular, Daniel puts a large emphasis on connecting the dots between near-term and long-term ROI. A lot of these themes and core questions are discussed and answered for clients of our AI Product Development Roadmap services.&nbsp;

AI's Strategic Value is the Anchor for ROI - With Daniel Faggella of Emerj

Emerj.com is where business leaders turn to understand how AI is impacting their business and industry - and what to do about it.

Our objective, jargon-free research and industry overviews are designed to give executives and decision-makers exactly what they need for competitive insight, informed AI technology procurement and strategic planning around AI.

AI disruption will open up new vistas for opportunity, creating new business paradigms and making others extinct. 

Emerj market research helps leaders survive and thrive in an era of AI disruption.

www.emerj.com

Table Stakes AI Insights for the Enterprise - with Vlad Sejnoha of Glasswing Ventures

The AI in Business Podcast