Robots, Facial recognition & Applied Artificial Intelligence in Bucharest

Notes from the Second Edition of Bucharest AI

Robotics and Automation to liberate $12 trillion by 2035, read titles across the web. According to ARK’s research on the growth potential of today’s disruptive technologies and Big Ideas of 2017, Robotics represents the annual breakout of technology that will accelerate significantly this year.

This is why we focused our second Bucharest AI edition on Robots and showcasing a demo using facial recognition software ‘Visage Cloud’.

Together with our event partner, Adobe Romania (thank you kindly), we had the pleasure and excitement to host “Nao”, the personal assistant robot built by the Politehnica University of Bucharest (University Politehnica of Bucharest is the largest Romanian University to have an AI oriented module where students learn and incorporate AI technologies in their projects). Bogdan Bocse and Cosmin Nicula, the founders from Visage Cloud demo-ed us how facial recognition meets big data followed up by a good round of Q&A, where use cases, accuracy tests and questions continued for longer than we planned for (that’s a fantastic thing to have!).:) London.AI and Sofia.AI joined us to walk us through their local applied AI scene highlighting activities and promising developments.

Nao (the Pebble robot) showed us [via Alex Sorici / Researcher @AI-MAS Politehnica University] how he plays with a ball, follows instructions and as an use case, can help elderly people. If you want to join us in a trip to the Politehnica University where we experiment and learn more about the taller and more advanced Pebble robot, kindly let us know by filling in our ‘Want to see the more advanced Pebble robot from Poli’ list form section.

Visage Cloud [via Bogdan Bocse and Cosmin Nicula] have demo-ed us their facial recognition software and followed with a very intense 45min of Q&A. They have also recently won Best Business Award at Innovation Labs. If you are curious or keen in testing their facial recognition software, drop them a line to get an API key sent over to you.

AI Leaders from London, Catalina Butnaru with Jamie Qiu, & Sofia, Lino Velev, have presented their scene and some AI ethics challenges. UK.AI is building up a bot and there’s a lot of work and effort that is going into it. The bot will be used by all of the CITY.AI Chapters, so it’s a pretty big deal for us.:) Sofia AI is building quite a strong AI community and if you’re ever in Sofia, don’t forget to say ‘hi’.:) We hope to hear more from them, and have them join us in a Panel to further debate AI ethics and challenges.

As usual, if you’ve joined our second edition, we’d appreciate some short feedback so we can better understand your needs and how we can further improve the event. It all starts with you!:)

What’s next for Edition Three of Bucharest AI?

‘Rockstart’, Europe’s first AI accelerator will join our community. How awesome! AI Program Director Marjel Quekel will be giving us more insights into their work and tell us a bit more on how the applications are going (they’re open until July 30, fyi) and what it takes to be one of the 10 startups selected for the AI accelerator by Rockstart that will receive €20,000 cash and €80,000 of in-kind funding, office space in Den Bosch for the duration of the program and support from mentors from relevant industries, as well as more than 50 perks and deals worth some €600,000. In addition to this, Rockstart announced that one of the lead investors of its acceleration programs has committed to invest at least €200,000 in an AI Startup of their choosing after the Demo Day. Good luck!

Demo slot, will be taken by one of the awesome local AI startups. :)

Global network insights slot, will have our very own Simona Nickmanova from Amsterdam AI telling us more about their local scene, interests and progress (they turned 1 year just now).:) You will hear more about the World AI Summit we organize in early October, as well as news on Amsterdam’s fantastic AI scene.

Sounds like something you’d be interested in and want to join us? Book a seat, now. We’d love to have you!

Where to find us?

Make sure you join our Facebook Group and follow our community page, as well as join our Bucharest AI Meetup Group. Stay connected with our global network of applied AI communities, CITY.AI, to discover, connect and share with the right people from cities around the globe.

Fancy talking to us? Drop Alexandra, Raoul, Mircea and Tudor a line and they’d be most excited to hear from you. Want to demo an AI project you’re working at or join our open space speaker slot? We’d love to book you a slot and encourage you to get feedback from the community. Have recommendations, thoughts, opinions. Please don’t hold it, ping us and let’s start sharing learnings.