LLMS IMPACT IN BUSINESS
We will be bringing together some of the founders and developers who are building in the LLM space!
This will be in our usual format of presentation (25 minute) followed by discussion (25 minute)
If you want to speak about any of these topics or similar ones, reach out to amir@ai.science
SCHEDULE
AUGUST 11th (times are in ET):
09:00 Patricia Thaine (CEO @ Private AI); LLMs and Data Privacy
10:00 Suhas Pai (CTO @ Bedrock AI); Small Language Models and Business Bottom Line
11:00 Richie (Seongmin) Youm (Data Scientist @ Wealthsimple); Accelerating Model Development with LLMs
12:00 Amir Feizpour (Founder @ Aggregate Intellect); LLM Live Book - Open Source Project Update
13:00 Moien Giashi (Sr. Investment Associate - Deep Tech @ Greensky Ventures); Generative AI Pitch Deck Roast
14:00 Sathish Gangichetty (Senior Solutions Architect @ Databricks); Business Transformation with Transformers
15:00 Ayesha Hafeez (Director of AI @ Arctic AI); LLMs for Security Compliance Assessment
16:00 Networking
SPEAKERS
Amir Feizpour
Amir is the co-founder of Aggregate Intellect (https://ai.science/), a Smart Knowledge Navigator platform for R&D teams in emerging technologies like AI. Prior to this, Amir was an NLP Product Lead at Royal Bank of Canada, and held a postdoctoral position at University of Oxford conducting research on experimental quantum computing. Amir holds a PhD in Physics from University of Toronto.
LLM Live Book - Update on our live book open source project
Sathish Gangichetty
Sathish is an applied AI practitioner with a deep passion for human-centered AI. Sathish blogs about topics he cares about at dsmonk.medium.com. He has over a decade of experience in leading and implementing AI/ML solutions across a variety of problem domains in a diverse set of industries ranging from software, retail and gaming. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
Business Transformation with Transformers: Delivering Impact In High Value Use Cases - In this talk, we’ll closely examine a case study that connects the impact of LLMs and more broadly, transformers in the industry. We do this by applying first principles thinking to a widely popular existing business use case across many industries (forecasting for demand management) to deliver meaningful business impact.
Suhas Pai
Suhas Pai is a NLP researcher and co-founder/CTO at Bedrock AI, a Toronto based startup. At Bedrock AI, he works on text ranking, representation learning, and productionizing LLMs. He is also currently writing a book on Designing Large Language Model Applications with O'Reilly Media. Suhas has been active in the ML community, being the Chair of the TMLS (Toronto Machine Learning Summit) conference since 2021 and also NLP lead at Aggregate Intellect (AISC). He was also co-lead of the Privacy working group at Big Science, as part of the BLOOM project.
How to resist the temptation to use LLMs when you don't need to - There is constant pressure from peers and upper management to tap into the novel capabilities provided by LLMs. But are the capabilities provided by LLMs always aligned with your business values? In this talk, I will showcase how 'Large' LMs may not always be the best task to solve your problem, and provide pointers on how to effectively divide your tasks such that each task is performed by the model/algorithm that is best suited for it. I will provide real-life examples and argue the effectiveness of having several models of different sizes working in tandem as opposed to pinning all hopes on the largest model available.
Richie (Seongmin) Youm
Richie is a full-stack data scientist specializing in Natural Language Processing. At Wealthsimple, Richie dedicates his expertise to integrating cutting-edge NLP technology across the company's products. Notably, he plays a pivotal role in leading implementation of LLM across the company’s products. His responsibilities encompass all aspects of productionalizing LLM, from developing various Proof-of-Concepts and leading discussions, to developing internal LLM guidelines, ensuring responsible usage, and providing education to colleagues in data science and engineering.
Accelerating traditional model development process with LLM - LLM is a powerful tool, yet not a silver bullet to replace all traditional ML models. At Wealthsimple, we leveraged LLM to accelerate processes of model development that would have previously taken months, to just a couple of weeks. We will discuss the development process of our topic model, ERNIE, and how LLM was used for the project.
Patricia Thaine
Patricia is the Co-Founder & CEO of Private AI, a Microsoft-backed startup who raised their Series A led by the BDC in November 2022. Private AI was named a 2023 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum. She is also a Computer Science PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto (on leave) and a Vector Institute alumna. Her R&D work is focused on privacy-preserving natural language processing, with a focus on applied cryptography and re-identification risk. She also does research on computational methods for lost language decipherment. Patricia is a recipient of the NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship, the RBC Graduate Fellowship, the Beatrice “Trixie” Worsley Graduate Scholarship in Computer Science, and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. She is the co-inventor of one U.S. patent and has ten years of research and software development experience, including at the McGill Language Development Lab, the University of Toronto’s Computational Linguistics Lab, the University of Toronto’s Department of Linguistics, and the Public Health Agency of Canada.
The Future of Software: Trust by Default and the Big Tech Pioneers Leading the Way - Companies are banning ChatGPT due to these concerns, while CISOs, CIOs, and CPOs are struggling to find solutions as employees demand access to this technology, seeing it as crucial for their jobs. The spotlight on data privacy has intensified over the past decade, with events like Edward Snowden's revelations and the implementation of GDPR. However, this paradigm shift in privacy understanding is driven by three main factors: a shift in consumer expectations, the realization of LLMs' potential for massive productivity gains, and the inclusion of company data in the concept of privacy. Organizations like Microsoft and Salesforce are leading the way in building trust by design into LLM ecosystems, providing secure and privacy-preserving environments for using LLMs with sensitive data. As consumer demand for privacy increases, it becomes crucial for companies to prioritize Trust by Design and ensure privacy-preserving practices in collecting, processing, and storing data.
Ayesha Hafeez
Ayesha is the Director of ML Solutions & Architecture at Arctic AI, an AI firm dedicated to enabling value creation for enterprises through ML solutions. Ayesha's focus is on designing custom ML pipelines and accelerating the adoption of POCs into production-ready ML applications across industries. She has over 7 years of experience, having worked across software engineering, data science, and technology consulting roles.
Automating Security Compliance Assessment: Leveraging LLMs for Streamlined Control Comparison - In this talk, we will delve into the innovative approach of automating security compliance assessment using Large Language Models (LLMs). By comparing organizational policies against a set of standard controls, we were able to streamline the assessment process. Throughout the session, we will provide insights into the complete ML process, covering key aspects such as ML problem framing, dataset curation, LLM selection, evaluation, and integration with the overall solution.
Generative AI Startup Pitch Roast - In this session, we will hear pitches from two startup founders followed by live feedback and discussion from Moien about what they can improve about the pitch. This discussion will then lead into a broader discussion around what gen ai founders need to pay attention to when preparing to engage with VCs.
Moien Giashi
Moien is a seasoned professional with diverse expertise in the biomedical industry, materials science, and research. Currently, as the Senior Investment Associate at GreenSky Capital, he leads deep tech investments, applying his extensive knowledge to identify promising opportunities. Moien also excels in advisory, strategy, business consulting, fundraising, and product development for startups across various sectors. His contributions as a Venture Partner with ArchAngel Network of Funds-Axion Fund and as a Scientific Affairs Associate at Baylis Medical (now Boston Scientific) have further enriched his career. Previously, as a Senior Venture Manager at CDL-Toronto, Moien played a pivotal role in securing over $12 million in investments for numerous companies. His remarkable journey showcases a true passion for driving innovation and fostering growth within the biotech and investment landscapes.
FEATURED FOUNDERS...
Tavis Lochhead
Tavis is the Co-Founder and CRO of Kadoa. He has 10+ years of B2B marketing leadership experience with startups and large enterprises, including Cisco
Kadoa automates data extraction with AI. Data extraction is a $6B market on the cusp of explosion as a result of LLMs. Kadoa currently focuses on web HTML data extraction with plans to expand to PDFs, emails, and more
Chandan Maruthi
Co-Founder and CEO, Ex H2O ai, LambaSchool, E2Open
Twig empowers developer-focused companies to deliver world-class customer support, with four times less staff using AI agents and contextual domain data. The founders are experienced AI and CX professionals from H2O ai, Workday, and Intel. In just four months we already have $50k ARR.
