AICON Speakers 2021

Alison is a Product Principal at Kainos and has over 20 years of industry experience. Alison is active in the start-up and product communities on the island of Ireland and has shaped and delivered large-scale transformation programmes across UK central Government. She has been advising start-ups for the last few years and now leads the Kainos startup initiative.

Matt Lee is a Data Scientist with expertise in medical imaging and computer vision. Previously a medical physicist specialising in digital radiology QA

Bronagh is a User Research Consultant at Kainos and has worked in research for over 10years. With experience leading research projects for UK government, as well as within FMCG, advertising and start up industries, she is keen to ensure that products and services are designed to truly meet customer and user needs. Bronagh has recently returned to Kainos after spending time expanding her experience in venture design, within the start-up community, and is now focusing on helping start-ups to generate insights and validate their ideas through research and experimentation.

Edward McDonnell is the Director of CeADAR which is Ireland’s National Centre for Applied Artificial Intelligence www.ceadar.ie The Centre which is funded by EI and the IDA has over 90 member companies across a wide span of industries. The Centre’s primary focus is on delivering cutting-edge AI solutions to industry, developing technology prototypes, training and in helping organisations pinpoint where AI technology can make a positive impact.

The CeADAR Centre won a Gold i-Spaces accreditation from the EU’s BDVA in 2020 (1 of only 9 in Europe), the Dunn & Bradstreet award for best analytics research group and the NASA prize in 2019 for a satellite system to help populations displaced by conflict.
Prior to being appointed Director of CeADAR, Edward was European Director of Innovation & Technology Research at Fidelity Investments in Dublin. The role involved prospecting for FinTech technology and investment opportunities across Europe, understanding developments in the European innovation ecosystem, and directing technology trials.
Edward has also held various technical and global senior management roles in the Office of Strategy and Technology at Hewlett-Packard Europe based in England.

Edward is a graduate of QUB has a PhD in Analytics and AI from the University of Edinburgh, is a Fellow of the IEE & ICS, and is the named inventor on 76 granted patents. He has been awarded several international prizes including the Scientific American top 50 technologies that demonstrate outstanding leadership, Grand Award and Overall Winner for Innovation, Popular Science (USA), Horizon Award “10 Cool Cutting Edge Technologies”, Computer World (USA).

Joe is an Innovation, Software Delivery, FinTech and Business lead experienced executive currently working in the role of VP, Group Head of Innovation at Endava.

Before the sale of Pramerica to TCS (Dec, 2020), Joe worked for Prudential / Pramerica for 16 years based in both Letterkenny, Ireland for 13 years as well as in the US on a 3-year international rotation from 2012 to 2015. Joe has held several leadership roles including Innovation Head, US based Interim CIO, Software Development Lead and Technical Project Manager. Before Pramerica, Joe worked in an IT start-up company called Nooked in Sligo, Ireland and Microsoft at their European Development Center in Dublin, Ireland.

He holds a Post Grad in UX, UI and Innovation, a MBS in Innovation (LYIT) & Leadership and a BSc in Computer Science (Sligo IT).

Joe is passionate about technology, innovation, volunteering, food, coaching and sport.

Marianne Bjerkman is the cluster manager for the fast-growing business cluster Cluster for Applied AI in Norway. In only one year the cluster was accepted into the national cluster program, and has already launched a series of successful projects.

Professor Gavin Shaddick is co-Director of the Met Office-University of Exeter Joint Centre for Excellence in Environmental Intelligence and Chair of Data Science and Statistics at the University of Exeter. He is an Alan Turing Fellow and leads on Environment and Sustainability at the Alan Turing Institute

Dr Chen is Professor of Data Analytics, Research Director for the School of Computing at Ulster University, UK. He received his BEng and Meng degrees at Beijing Institute of Technology, China, and DPhil on Computer Science at De Montfort University, UK. His current research interests include pervasive computing, data analytics, artificial intelligence, user-centred intelligent systems and their applications in smart healthcare and cyber security. Dr Chen is an IET Fellow, a Senior Member of IEEE, the founding chair of the IEEE CIS” User-centred Smart Systems” Task Force. He has published monographs, edited books, peer-reviewed papers in internationally recognised journals and conferences, over 250 in total. He has served as an associate editor or guest editor for IEEE THMS and Computer, Elsevier PMC and IJDSN and Springer PUC and AIHC. His research has been funded by external grants from the UK research councils, European Research Programmes such as FP7, AAL and Horizon 2020, and industrial collaborators like SAP, British Telecommunication and PwC. Dr Chen has delivered over 30 talks, keynotes and seminars in various forums, conferences, industry and academic events. He has served as an expert for research funding assessment for UKRI, EU Horizon2020, Canada, Chile, Netherlands and Denmark.

Courtney joined Datactics in 2019 after graduating from University of Ulster with a First Class degree in Computing Science. During her studies, she spent valuable time working on data quality, primarily via SQL scripts, for a public sector department. Client-focused, Courtney possesses strong technical skills needed to address client requirements and implement changes using the Datactics product.

Hojjat is the Founder and CEO of AINOSTICS. He holds a PhD in Biomedical Imaging and Data Sciences, and is an Honorary Professor at the University of Manchester. In 2019, he was named as one of the most influential foreign entrepreneurs in the area of medical AI in China.

Christian is the founder of AiCore, a specialist AI & Data workforce accelerator that trains individuals to build out production-grade systems deployed at companies today. AiCore produces 1000 AI engineers per year and develops immersive AI engineering programmes for enterprises and government, including Deutsche Bank and the Department for International Trade.

A seasoned AgTech Entrepreneur Terry grew up on a dairy farm. After studying engineering he spent 9 years working for blue chip companies worldwide on cloud computing projects. In 2004 he applied this knowledge to the livestock industry founding FarmWizard.com the world’s first SaaS for managing livestock. He grew that business over 10 years selling it in 2015 to Wheatsheaf. Terry believes that recent advances in Machine Vision powered by Deep Learning Artificial Intelligence now creates an opportunity to develop CattleEye, a truly Autonomous Livestock Monitoring solution.

Piers leads the technology strategy, growth and customer delivery for Data and AI at Kainos. He has over 15 years of experience delivering innovation to customers across multiple sectors. Piers led the team that delivered the 2018 UK IT Awards AI Project of the Year with DVSA and has worked with governmental, energy and telecoms organisations around the globe, helping them to make better use of the data and build AI capability. Piers started his career in academia lecturing and leading research teams in the UK, Middle East and Australia.

Senior leader with over 20 years’ experience successfully developing and delivering strategic change in the fields of data & analytics, multi-channel CRM, sales operations, sales performance management and financial operations. Marc has worked with large multi nationals across the transport, technology and communications sectors to transform the customer experience, deliver operational efficiency and create value. With a passion for analytics he has a proven track record of implementing cultural change at all levels of an organisation, enabling the democratisation of data and embedding evidence based decision making across the enterprise.

Founded Conigital, a driverless vehicle company automating the way people and goods move. They are on mission to disrupt the transport industry through a vision of greener, more efficient mobility, for all.

Isabella joined the Data & AI Practice as a Trainee Data Scientist in 2021. She began her career at Kainos as a Software Engineer after graduating from a MSc Computer Science conversion at the University of Birmingham in 2020. She completed her final project in AI and natural language processing for German. At Kainos she has worked on various internal and customer projects, including a piece of advanced analytics work which was presented at COP26.

Mairead is a data scientist at Deutsche Bank, working with advanced technologies and tools to develop a range of innovative data solutions involving Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning. She has 4+ years of experience in delivering analytics, visualisations and models that support the adoption and integration of data driven solutions across the business. She has a specific interest in using data storytelling, visualisations and interpretability techniques to make data science techniques more accessible to stakeholders and end users, integrating machine learning and analytics into everyday workflows.

Eleanor ‘Nell’ Watson is an engineer who lectures in machine intelligence research. She has contributed to IEEE SA ethics initiatives, including serving as vice chair of P7001 standard on transparency, and contributing to many ECPAIS certification working groups. Nell holds fellowships with the British Computing Society, Royal Statistical Society, The Atlantic Council, as well as holding Senior Membership within IEEE.

Following a seven year career in the Royal Marines, Christian gained a degree in Physics, specialising in quantum mechanics, and began pursuing a career in data analysis and data science. Christian is one of the founding members of HM Land Registry’s data science practice and has gained expertise in a variety of data science fields. Most recently his attention has turned to computer vision and geospatial data science, and how the real world can be leveraged to enhance existing spatial data. Christian lives with his wife and son in Plymouth less than a minute from the sea, which, as a family, they spend every possible moment either in, on or next to.

The current Lord Mayor of Belfast is Councillor Kate Nicholl who took up office on 1 June 2021. A member of the Alliance Party, she was elected as a representative for the Balmoral district at the 2019 Local Government Election.
Councillor Nicholl, 33, was born in Zimbabwe and moved with her family to Belfast when she was 12 years old. She attended Methodist College and University College London and is currently enrolled in a master’s degree at Ulster University.
Councillor Nicholl lives and works in South Belfast and is married with an 18-month-old son, Cian. The theme for Councillor Nicholl’s year in office is ‘Our Belfast’, with a commitment to meet the people in every area, to recognise those who are making a difference in every quarter, and to find ways to work with them for the betterment of the city. She also wishes to highlight the voices of children and young people during her year in office and to champion action on climate change and the environment.

Rachel brings together and leads expert teams to research and develop new tech products and their associated business ventures from inception to commercialisation.

Yassine Jelassi has a background of oil & gas engineering. He had an international experience in Schlumberger, an oilfield service company. Yassine covered multiple districts in North Africa, the Middle East and USA. He worked as technical and sales engineer for the client Saudi Aramco. He led multiple large Digital & AI Transformation projects that led to considerable business impact to Schlumberger and Saudi Aramco. Yassine developed multiple machine learning solutions for the oil and gas industry, one of which he has submitted a patent for.

Yassine is currently working as the commercial manager for CeADAR, Ireland’s National Centre for Applied Artificial Intelligence. He guides companies in their AI journey and help them achieve business impact and competitive advantage from their AI initiatives.

Yassine graduated in 2011 as an Industrial Engineer from the University of Carthage in Tunis. He also holds an MBA from the UCD Smurfit Business School.

Alastair is the Chief Technology Officer at Analytics Engines where he is responsible for technology strategy, solution architecture and innovation. Alastair gained his PhD from QUB in 2009 focusing on high-performance computing and algorithms used in telecommunications
He is interested in data modelling and data engineering in PostgreSQL and Python, Cloud Native solution architecture and NLP applications.

Ryan is a Customer Journey Analytics Manager at Allstate, driving customer centricity and improving the customer experience through Voice of Customer actionable insights.