Rockstart, AI accelerators, AI startups and a Machine Learning approach to IoT security, from the scene in Bucharest, Romania
Notes from the Bucharest.AI Meetup 3.0
👌Our friends @Avira, did a marvelous job hosting us (super thank yous!) and our Bucharest AI enthusiasts, that joined us, have been nothing but great. Mircea Vadan, super cool guy from Cluj AI, joined us briefly to say ‘Hi’. Should you be visiting Cluj, make sure you drop him a note to connect with the AI scene there, fantastic progress happening in Cluj.
Certainly, powerful things happen when like-minded people connect.
As always, if you attended, kindly fill in this short feedback form and we’ll make sure to further improve our future Bucharest AI meetup events and content. If you want to join our Open Space Pitch, we’ll be a pleasure to have you, starting September. Kindly fill in your spot and we’ll reach out to set up the details.
Where to find us? Make sure to join Bucharest AI on our Facebook community, Facebook group or 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.
Rockstart, AI Accelerators, AI startups
Rockstart, Europe’s first AI accelerator joined our community. How awesome! AI Program Director Marjel Quekel gave us insights into Rockstart’s work and told us a bit more on what it takes to be selected as one of the 10 startups for their AI Accelerator (they’re open until July 30, fyi).
Each of the 10 startups selected will receive €20,000 cash and €80,000 of in-kind funding, office space in Den Bosch for the duration of the program. Other important benefits include: support from mentors from relevant industries, as well as more than 50 perks and deals worth some €600,000. In addition to this, Rockstart recently 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. Sounds like something you’d be interested in? DM Marjel and get a convo started. Rockstart is one of the most appreciated accelerators in Europe.
We’ve sent a couple of questions to Marjel, Rockstart’s AI Program Director. Stay tuned as we’ll be posting them soon.:)
AI Accelerators in Europe
Here’s a visual view of the AI Accelerators available in Europe. For further insights into assessment metrics, global list of AI accelerators (not just Europe) and a summary of all the AI accelerators put in perspective one to the another, I kindly recommend you read through Francesco Corea’s well documented guide “Unsupervised Investments (II): A Guide to AI Accelerators and Incubators”
AI startups highlights from Bucharest / Romania & Europe
Here’s a sneak peak into some European & Bucharest scene AI startups. With the mention that I was fully based in picking these as they may solve problems I am interested in, though do have a look as they’re here to build tomorrow.
A Machine Learning Approach to IoT security
We had the pleasure of meeting and listening to Tatiana Petrache, Machine Learning Engineer in the Innovation team @Avira.
According to Gartner, by 2020, connected things will reach 20.4 billion. More than 25% of the identified attacks in the Enterprise will involve IoT. It is clear that IoT devices are getting ubiquitous in people’s daily lives. They are smart, but not smart enough to ward off security vulnerabilities. Tatiana walked us through her insights into how machine learning can make IoT devices safe.
How to detect intrusions? As presented by Tatiana, there are two methods:
Signature Based: not really feasible for IoT (it requires processing power).
Behaviour Based: lightweight endpoint protection. One can use: unsupervised learning (no label) via clustering and / or outlier detection; supervised learning (data has labels) via Markov chains or combine unsupervised with supervised learning algorithms.
Tatiana’s recommendations:
Slice & Dice your data — Exploratory Data Analysis
Feature Selection & Feature Engineering
Try Various Models & Compare their performance
BEWARE of the Toaster or use Machine Learning :)
Want more details? Check out Tatiana’s full deck.
The AI scene in Amsterdam
Simona Nickmanova from Amsterdam AI & World Summit AI, joined us, remotely, to tell us a bit on what makes Amsterdam sparkle when it comes to the AI scene & why it’s so special.:) Have a read through her recent very comprehensive and detailed guide on the AI scene in Amsterdam.
Also, Amsterdam AI has just turned 1 year. If you’re planning to travel to Amsterdam, DM Simona if you want to meet fellow AI enthusiasts or just connect with the scene there.
Are you already pumped up by the Amsterdam magic?:)
It starts with You! Want to connect, feedback, recommend someone or introduce yourself to Bucharest AI?
Awesome! Kindly reach out to Alexandra, Raoul or Mircea and they’d be most keen to hear from you.:) Please don’t hold it, ping us and let’s start sharing learnings and via collaborative knowledge to solve unthinkable human problems. AI4all.
Happy Summer & see you in September.:)
