[PRESS RELEASE] AI Awards, Sponsored by Principal Sponsor Microsoft, Announce 2022 Finalists

Dublin, 14^th of November 2022: Today, AI Ireland has announced the shortlist for its fourth annual AI Awards, sponsored by Principal sponsor Microsoft.

The AI Awards 2022 will be presented at the Gibson Hotel on the 23^rd of November. These Awards, which are part of the not-for-profit organisation AI Ireland, support the growth and development of Data Science, Machine learning, and Artificial Intelligence in Ireland. The AI Awards are also sponsored by Alldus International, The ADAPT Centre, CCT College Dublin, IDA Ireland and Mazars.

This year also saw the introduction of four new categories for responsible use of ethics within AI, Women in AI, Role Model of the Year and AI Person of the year.

“In 2022 there have been multiple breakthroughs that had been thought to be years away. The first has been in language processing and the second AI-based images. Applications for this year’s Awards have been the highest quality to date with business and societal problems being address using technology as an enabler by our finalists” said Mark Kelly, Chief Customer Officer at Alldus & Founder of AI Ireland.

“As the world undergoes seismic change, the sheer breadth of AI and Machine Learning, research, development and implementation across private, public and academic organisations is exciting and shows how AI can help us embrace change and avail of massive opportunities in this new reality.”

Quote, Microsoft Ireland

Microsoft Ireland General Manager Anne Sheehan said: “Microsoft is proud of its continued sponsorship of AI Awards since their inception, which showcases the innovative excellence of the Irish Artificial Intelligence Sector, which continues to evolve at an accelerating pace.

At Microsoft, we know that technology can and should be a force for good, which is why it’s wonderful to see the introduction of four new categories for responsible use of ethics, showcasing Ireland’s commitment to the trustworthy use of new digital solutions. Innovation through AI technology can make such a positive impact across many different sectors, from education and research to finance and health, as well as addressing some of the bigger challenges we are facing as a society. The AI Awards are key to harnessing this and recognising Irish talent and we are delighted to support the awards once again for a fourth year.”

IDA Quote by Dr. Nicola Stokes

“2022 represents another stellar year for AI deployment by IDA client companies across sectors from financial services to manufacturing, life sciences and beyond.  For many of our clients, 2022 was the year where they successfully scaled and productised their AI R&D prototypes from Ireland. Irish based multinational companies are using AI in a variety of different ways: to monetise their data, develop new products & business models and enabling operational efficiencies. Powered by an incredible talent base and a world class academic ecosystem, Ireland is fast becoming recognised as a leading AI R&D hub. IDA is a proud sponsor of the AI Ireland Awards which helps to both showcase and promote this excellence in AI research and development in Ireland.”

ADAPT Quote by Declan McKibben Executive Director at ADAPT Centre

Declan McKibben, Executive Director of the SFI ADAPT Centre said:

“”The adoption of Artificial Intelligence applications is helping to supercharge the competitive position of small and medium-sized businesses.  The past couple of years has acted as a catalyst for SMEs to embark on digital transformation initiatives and it is an exciting space for innovation. At the ADAPT Centre, our research is helping companies rise to the challenges and opportunities created by AI.  We are proud to sponsor the AI Awards again this year and in particular the Best Application of AI in an SME award.”

Patricia Scanlon AI Ambassador for Ireland

“2022 has been a fantastic year for Ireland in AI, making significant contributions across the entire AI ecosystem, introducing innovative initiatives, companies, products and research that is having a global impact. It is great to see the AI Awards highlight this work and recognize these achievements with a fantastic list of nominees again this year. ”

 

SME 

1. Getlocal.ie – utilises A.I. technology across all primary operations and functions, creating the first scalable local eCommerce specific platform which supports independent businesses nationwide.
2. Kinesense – a leading provider of video analytics software and cloud-based Digital Evidence Asset Management (DEAM) solutions that help police find and share critical evidence hidden in thousands of hours of CCTV video.
3. Rinocloud – who created the Skin Trust Club, the first commercialised skincare type classification report delivered through skin microbiome analysis and the application of Machine Learning Models which empower people to make informed choices when it comes to their skin.
4. Sonalake – a software partnering company that helps enterprises to innovate using software, reinforcing existing know-how and data with cutting-edge analytics, automation, and visualisation technologies.

Responsible AI

1. ADAPT Centre – The project aims to develop a set of standard form privacy policies consistent with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the digital services industry and public policy sectors.
2. ACI Worldwide – ACI’s fraud strategy is flexible, scalable, adaptable and provide accurate recommendations to either accept or deny the transactions in real time, while being able to explain to the customer why the machine-learning models considered the transaction suspicious.
3. Shutterstock – has launched a new Diversity and Inclusion (DEI) programme, which aims to build a workforce and AI products that reflect the diverse global community and helping the AI community to establish guiding principles towards Ethical AI.

4. Webio – has built its own proprietary Conversational AI (NLP) Engine to specifically identify the intents and entities associated with credit and collections conversations, enabling Webio to understand what the customer is trying to achieve more effectively than generic solutions and leading to more people paying off more debt if creditors engage them empathetically.

Customer Service

4. Genesys – Its Predictive Routing matches customers to agents in real-time by using AI to curate hundreds of features and create machine learning models to predict outcomes of potential matches.
5. Shopbox – is an AI-powered adaptive shopping experience platform, transforming any generic online store into one that learns about each visitor. From their very first click, it constantly adapts in real-time throughout their entire shopping journey.
6. Sonalake – Report descriptive statistics and classification results predicting normal vs. bad Quality of Service for one of the leading mobile operators in Ireland up to seven days in advance.
7. Webio – has built its own proprietary Conversational AI (NLP) Engine to specifically identify the intents and entities associated with credit and collections conversations, enabling Webio to understand what the customer is trying to achieve more effectively than generic solutions.

Women in AI

1. Amy Awad – Amy is co-funding a health technology company (Opa Mind). The technology analyses the user’s voice and sends back a range of reflective metrics and indicators which are processed into responses to help people with their mental health.
2. Lilya Akhtyamova – Lilya applied for Career Pathing, a Product which helps employees identify opportunities for growth within their current companies.
3. Susie Harding – Is leading development in Arvoia, which provides advanced Artificial Intelligence to the hospitality industry and has analytics at the core.
4. Terri O’Donovan – To build digital capability, change management and problem-solving skills, Terri worked with the global team to develop a “Workforce of the Future” Program.

AI Person

1. Amelia Kelly – Amelia Kelly is an artificial intelligence engineer and scientist specializing in speech recognition of children’s voices. She is currently the Vice President of Speech Technology at Dublin-based SoapBox Labs and has more than a decade of experience in speech signal processing, natural language processing, machine learning, and AI.
2. Alessandra Sala – Alessandra is a female research and scientific leader who has devoted her career to drive changes in the field of AI both on a technical and regulatory level.
3. Luca Longo – He has achieved international recognition for his research in Explainable AI (XAI). XAI is a field at the intersection of neural paradigms for learning with symbolic paradigms for inference and reasoning.
4. Nabanita Roy – Nabanita is a member of ACI Worldwide’s Data Science team, a company specialising in delivering payment software and solutions that power the global economy.

Young AI Role Model

1. Eoin Delaney, Insight Centre – Eoin developed a wholly-new, counterfactual technique designed to handle time-series data; this is the first such method in the AI literature (which is already highly cited and has won an international award).
2. Farooq Shaikh, Sonalake – Farooq has proven himself to be a great asset to the Sonolake data analytics team and the wider company in relatively short time. He is an innovator in the growing AIOps space and how it relates to Sonalake’s VisiMetrix network service analytics product.
3. James Brosnan, ACI Worldwide – As a part of the award-winning ACI’s Data Science team, James has worked to ensure ACI’s models are tested in new innovative ways at exceedingly high throughputs. He has helped test the platform at 1000s of transactions per second in only a few months in the job.

4. Kevin Quinlan, ESB – Kevin’s enthusiasm and drive in establishing analytics within ESB and commitment to making ESB a digital utility which could have a long-term impact on the energy system and climate in Ireland.

Large Enterprise

1. Allstate Northern Ireland – The Legal Automation Toolkit automates the gathering of relevant data, the generation and completion of legal documents and the correct placement of the documents in the legal departments existing document management platform.
2. AXA Insurance – Auto-docs processes incoming documents and classifies them automatically. It allows detecting the presence of bodily injuries within documents and an earlier routing of the claims to the relevant teams, resulting in faster resolution of claims.
3. Bank of Ireland – The Downstream User Table takes care of the whole lifecycle of the machine learning models from deployment and calibration of a new model to monitoring and a final step to produce a ready-to-use single business view that enables a myriad of applications.
4. Dell Technologies – Our mission is to enable a seamless customer experience reducing time to provide resolutions and prevent them from occurring in future

Academic Research

1. AI_PREMie – University College Dublin – Built by combining AI with world renowned clinical and scientific expertise, AI_PREMie will be able to augment frontline clinical decision making in real-time, hopefully enabling more accurate diagnosis of pre-eclampsia and personalised treatment of expectant mothers and their babies that will save lives.
2. Intelligent Systems Research Centre – Ulster University – are the developers of a novel Artificial Intelligence system used for decoding brain activity corresponding to imagined speech. This would enable communication for those suffering from neuro-pathologies such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Locked-In Syndrome.
3. SENDoc – Ulster University & Tyndall National Institute – The SENDoc project developed a range of AI-based technologies to provide older adults and clinicians with novel predictions about health conditions, enabling more timely and personalised interventions and ultimately prevent health conditions deteriorating.
4. UniCOOK – ADAPT Centre – The UniCOOK Artificial Intelligence engine uses machine learning to analyse digital recipes, automatically building a storyboard designed to be inclusive for all. It also automates the linking of ingredient terms to products in a retailer’s database easing the process of automatic shopping list population and online shopping integration.

Students

1. Alessandro Ragano, UCD – This project is based on a deep-learning AI that assesses the quality of music and adds metadata to it in order to improve accessibility in an archive.
2. Eoin Delaney, UCD – Delaney developed a wholly-new, counterfactual technique designed to handle time-series data; this is the first such method in the AI literature (which is already highly cited and has won an international award).
3. Gabriel Bueno Pimentel Borges, CCT College – this research was able to combine the data analytics background by integrating the most relevant academic literature related to Lámh language and AAC with the state of the art in regard to sign language detection and classification in the machine learning research of other sign languages and motion recognition.
4. Gregory Balogh & Anchit Bhagat, Queens University – Energia Trading identified a requirement for increased insights and decision support from market data utilising AI and thus developed and leveraged a relationship with Queens University’s MSc in Data Analytics course

Healthcare

1. Akara Robotics – Violet uses advanced sensing and AI abilities that allow it to traverse complex hospital environments and closely control the parts of the room that are irradiated.
2. Axial3D – develops AI-based software solutions that automatically convert hard-to-understand 2D medical scans into incredibly precise, patient-specific 3D models at scale and at a price point that is accessible for all.
3. OpaMind – for their AI-powered app, available 24/7 without the need to talk to another person and provide instant personalized mental health assistant.
4. Rinocloud – for their work with Skin Trust Club in applying Machine Learning Models with an in-home skin microbiome test that allows users to make informed choices when it comes to what products are best suited to their skin.

Startup

1. OpaMind – for their AI-powered app, available 24/7 without the need to talk to another person and provide an instant personalised mental health assistant.
2. Probvision – for their easy-to-assemble AI security camera and pocket-size AI personnel computer with dual thermal and optical sensors that can help constantly monitor people’s health and more.
3. SeamlessCARE Ltd. – for their AI application Empathic that helps non-verbal people to independently communicate. It uses AI to interpret short recordings of non-verbal vocalisations & support people with communication difficulties.
4. Shopbox – for their AI-powered adaptive shopping experience platform which delivers online retailers large and small, an Amazon-style personalised shopping experience, without the hefty price tag.

Social Good

1. AI_Premie UCD –  who are saving lives of mothers and babies by combining AI with patented biomarkers and clinical expertise to accurately diagnose pre-eclampsia and predict the patient’s future outcome.
2. Akara Robotics – for their robot Violet which uses advanced sensing and AI abilities that allow it to traverse complex hospital environments and closely control the parts of the room that are irradiated.
3. SFI ADAPT Centre – for their project N-Light, an AI-driven platform that identifies patterns applying patterns of child sexual abuse and grooming behaviours from child victim reports.
4. The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland – who developed a suite of deep-learning models capable of transcribing most handwritten historical texts to preserve original sources of Irish history for the next generation of historical researchers.