Prof Patricia Maguire of AI Premie and Peter Lougheed of Microsoft Ireland at the AI Awards ceremony. Image: Conor McCabe Photography
Bank of Ireland went home with the award for large enterprises while Dr Amelia Kelly of SoapBox Labs was named AI person of the year.
Irish innovators have been recognised for their use of artificial intelligence at the fourth annual AI Awards.
Organised by non-profit AI Ireland and sponsored by Microsoft, the awards aim to support the growth of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence in Ireland and recognise those deploying AI to solve problems in business, academics, health and the environment.
Bank of Ireland bagged the award for best application of AI in a large enterprise. The bank’s tech identifies the maturity journey of a cohort of machine learning models implemented for customer propensity modelling. The aim is to offer a single view of validated, accurate and ready-to-use output for downstream users.
Kinesense took home the award for best application of AI in an SME for its Visual Intelligence Search Platform, which seeks to improve workflows for transcoding, analysing and distributing videos using deep learning video analytics and cloud-based processing technologies.
University College Dublin (UCD) digital health spin-out SeamlessCare bagged the award in the start-up category for its work to help non-verbal people communicate. It technology is aimed at people with a wide range of disabilities, including autism, acquired brain injury, dementia and intellectual disability.
The high-potential start-up was founded by Dr Aviva Cohen, Ian Kennedy and Dr Çağrı Çubukçu with the support of NovaUCD and Enterprise Ireland.
UCD’s AI Premie team, which looks at combining AI with information carried by platelets to help doctors diagnose pre-eclampsia, won under two separate categories: best application of AI in an academic research body and best application of AI to achieve social good.
Led Prof Patricia Maguire, the team is focused on using AI to identify pregnant women at risk of preeclampsia. AI Premie won a special prize in Science Foundation Ireland’s AI for Societal Good challenge last year.
Individual winners included Dr Amelia Kelly of SoapBox Labs, who was recognised as AI person of the year.
Terri O’Donovan of Janssen was named women in AI person of the year, Kevin Quinlan of ESB as young AI role model of the year, and Eoin Delaney of UCD for best application of AI in a student project.
Dublin-based software company Webio was recognised for the best use of AI in a consumer or customer service application, while Trinity spin-out Akara Robotics was recognised for best application of AI in healthcare.
“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,” said Microsoft Ireland general manager Anne Sheehan.
“The AI Awards are key to harnessing this and recognising Irish talent and we want to congratulate all their winners for their exciting innovation in AI.”
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