BrazilPwC partners with upcoming artificial intelligence forum in Dubai
This year’s artificial intelligence-focused Artelligence Forum will kick off within a fortnight, with PwC serving as the event’s official knowledge partner.
Taking place on the 4th and 5th of September 2019 in Dubai, the 2019 Artelligence Forum will see more than 300 government, business and technology leaders come together to discuss current and future developments in the field of artificial intelligence and the implications for business models and strategy – with a roster of experts from some of the world’s leading companies set to share insights on their paths to implementation.
Featuring among the keynotes speakers; Scott Nowson, Artificial Intelligence Lead at PwC Middle East, the official knowledge partner for the event. Joining PwC in the Emirates this year, Nowson previously served as Consumer Analytics/AI Manager at Accenture’s Dublin-based innovation centre The Dock, which was launched in 2017, before which he led a global customer modelling research project for the Xerox Research Centre in Europe.
Holding a MSc. in Cognitive Sciences and Natural Languages and a PhD in Informatics from the University of Edinburgh, Nowson has spent close to the past twenty years working and researching in the fields of artificial intelligence and advanced analytics, over that time filing several patents while publishing more than 20 papers on topics such as sentiment & emotion recognition, user profiling, and new applications of and approaches to deep learning.
Nowson will be joined on stage by a host of other speakers during the two-day summit, including headliner Omar Sultan Al Olama, UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, who in 2017 became the first ever person to hold such a post. Other names on the bill include Richard Vdovjak, principal scientist for Data Science & AI at Philips, and Abhijit Akerkar, Head of AI Business Integration at Lloyds Banking Group UK.
The latter will address how businesses can start driving value from existing AI implementations. “Two in every three companies invested in AI are yet to generate any tangible value. And of those companies that have turned the corner, almost half are still at sub-scale level. The good news is that value is not elusive. Companies such as Google and Amazon generate over 50 per cent of their profits using AI,” Akerkar stated.
Last year forecasting that AI would contribute $320 billion to the Middle East economy by 2030 (of $15.7 trillion globally), PwC has been a solid proponent of the technology, having also recently supported the Dubai World Trade Centre’s ‘Ai Everything’ event in April and last years’ Artificial Intelligence Week Middle East conference. The firm has also contended that the Middle East could position itself as a world leader in the development of AI in healthcare.
“Given the massive opportunities and potential risks associated with AI, companies, global bodies, nonprofit groups, citizens, and policymakers must come together to devise the right strategies that consider the various trade-offs in ways that make sense in their country,” PwC stated in a recent report. “Not having a coherent, comprehensive national strategy could put future generations at a competitive disadvantage.
