AI in Action E517: Tao Wang, Director of Machine Learning at SurveyMonkey

Today's guest is Greg Wheeler, Public Sector Vertical Lead at CDW ServiceNow Solutions. As a ServiceNow Elite Partner, CDW helps you optimize the value of your ServiceNow investment and streamline IT operations across your organization. With customers ranging from Fortune 500 companies to some of the nation’s leading healthcare organizations and higher education institutions, their team have the experience to help you succeed with your ServiceNow initiatives. Greg is responsible for defining a catalog of solutions based on industry best practice frameworks and optimizing the ServiceNow platform for government clients at CDW. Part of this role is identifying consistent, reliable, repeatable processes for marketing, scoping and delivering the identified services. Delivery includes both the technical delivery (e.g. configuration of the ServiceNow platform) as well as appropriate Organizational Change Management methods to ensure their clients' success. In this episode, Greg talks about: His career journey & overview of their work at CDW How the Public sector mirrors private sector but with distinct challenges, ServiceNow’s possibilities beyond IT to enhance the citizen experience, Utilizing ServiceNow to aid school districts in asset management and interaction, Establishing a CoE to merge ServiceNow expertise with practitioner insight, How the Government blends strategic planning with agile implementation, How CDW blends large-scale capability with agile innovation

Today's guest is Drew Linsley, Co-Founder and CEO at Operant Biopharma. Operant Biopharma's AI-powered robotic microscope learns to design drugs by watching and controlling diseases over time.  Their platform autonomously designs biological experiments, discovering and optimizing disease treatments. The company focuses on high-need areas like neurodegenerative and kidney diseases, aiming to horizontally address multiple indications and out-license discoveries, blending AI and biology for innovative therapeutic development. Drew is also an Assistant Professor (Research) in Computational Neuroscience and AI at Brown University. He studies biological and artificial intelligence, and believes we need artificial vision to create intelligent machines capable of reasoning about the world. However, existing artificial vision systems struggle with many visual challenges that we routinely solve in our daily lives. He looks to biological vision to inspire new solutions to these challenges in artificial vision. In this episode, Drew talks about: Applying AI to analyze disease data and guide therapeutics autonomously, How Robotic microscopy tracks dynamic biology to aid disease treatment advancements, How AI optimizes drug discovery pipeline & manipulates cellular states for treatment, Applying AI to drive horizontal drug development for diverse indications, Their unique staffing needs within AI, biology and neuroscience

Today's guest is Tao Wang, Director of Machine Learning at SurveyMonkey. Headquartered in California, SurveyMonkey is a global leader in online surveys and forms that empowers people with the insights they need to make decisions with speed and confidence. The company's fast, intuitive feedback management platform connects millions of users worldwide with real-time AI-powered insights that drive meaningful decisions. It is SurveyMonkey's vision is to raise the bar for human experiences by amplifying individual voices. With over 15 years of experience in software engineering and machine learning, Tao has a passion for building scalable, reliable and high-performance solutions that solve real-world problems and create value for users and stakeholders. Tao has led and contributed to cross-functional projects, teams and research in AI, machine learning, data mining, big data, parallel processing, computer vision and software development. Tao believes in the power of AI and machine learning to transform the way we communicate, learn and grow. In this episode, Tao discusses: His journey to SurveyMonkey from research to leadership, Empowering data-driven decisions with AI-enabled features, How the ML team streamlines collaboration for innovation, His emphasis on servant leadership, coaching and process, Integrating ChatGPT for enhanced survey experience at SurveyMonkey, Career opportunities with SurveyMonkey, What makes SurveyMonkey a great place to work

Today's guest is Ben Wilcox, ServiceNow Americas Practice Leader at IBM. Ben is a seasoned professional services leader, with global experience with across multiple industry sectors. Ben has strong experience as an operations and sales leader with a strategic mindset and demonstrating results with clients. His focus is on understanding client issues and developing solutions to achieve the desired outcome. In his current role with the IBM ServiceNow practice, Ben and his team are focused on expanding their footprint and offerings, as well as delivering world-class services. It is their aim is to identify the relevant pain points in an organization and subsequently, define solutions that leverage the ServiceNow Platform and IBM's broad capabilities to achieve the defined outcomes and deliver measurable value to their clients. In this episode, Ben talks about: His journey to leading the ServiceNow Americas practice at IBM, How IBM's ServiceNow partnership drives digital efficiency and client success, How ServiceNow IRM enhances security & HRSD streamlines self-service functionalities, Gen AI's role in accelerating digital workplace transformation for operational efficiency, IBM's focus on diverse capabilities, career flexibility, client value & expertise, Utilizing diverse capabilities for comprehensive client solutions

Today's guest is Josh Ransom, VP of Customer Experience and Board Member at BEKhealth. Founded in 2020, BEKhealth are a team of technologists, data scientists, nurses and clinical operations experts on a mission to significantly increase patient access to clinical research by enhancing sites and sponsors ability to “identify and match” more patients. They achieve this through leveraging their AI-powered patient-matching platform to detect more protocol-eligible candidates than traditional methods. Josh is a dynamic, solutions-focused leader with deep experience at Fortune 500 and emerging pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device, diagnostic and life-sciences companies. He is an AI and analytics expert who is passionate about delivering on research goals through more rapid identification of clinically-qualified patients. Josh and the team at BEKhealth are on a mission to positively impact the lives of 100 million people by organizing the world’s medical data to expand access to clinical research. In today's episode, Josh talks about: His background leveraging big patient data for medical insights and advancements, How BEKhealth's AI platform integrates patient data for clinical research, Applying AI to improve patient recruitment in healthcare research trials, His proudness of the team's AI superiority over industry giants, How the engineering team enhances NLP for larger datasets & facilitates trials, What makes BEKhealth a great place to work

Today's guest is Thomas Sidebottom, Principal Platform Architect at ECS Federal. Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, ECS are proud to build successful customer relationships with some of the world’s leading agencies in both the public and private sectors. Inspired by the ability to create, innovate and serve, their highly skilled teams work together to solve complex challenges and provide advanced technology, science and engineering solutions, including cloud, cybersecurity, AI, data and enterprise transformation. Thomas has worked in the ServiceNow ecosystem for over 17 years and possesses a deep understanding of the technical underpinnings of the platform. While embracing the complexity of technology, Tom focuses on end-to-end digital transformation solutions that are elegant and fit for purpose. He brings a considerable implementation and application development background, that spans nearly every industry, to his current role with ECS Federal. Tom is passionate about collaborating with ServiceNow’s customers throughout their digital transformation journey. In this episode, Thomas talks about: Transitioning from Oracle to ServiceNow and his path to joining ECS, ECS’ focus on emphasizing process in the federal and commercial sectors, Prioritizing customer needs, teamwork and ensuring realistic solutions, Implementing mobile solutions for government agencies to improve efficiency and workflow, How strong communication facilitates project understanding and innovation, Being in continuous growth mode and seeking diverse skill sets, The continued impact of AI in the ServiceNow platform, Offering vast opportunities to government agencies embracing tech, His advice to find a mentor, ask questions and value culture

Today's guest is Joyce Myers, Chief Data Officer at Modern Technology Solutions Inc. (MTSi). Founded in 1993, MTSi is a 100% employee-owned engineering services and technology solutions company delivering first-choice capabilities to solve problems of global importance. Their mission is to make important, lasting contributions to the nation’s defense, security and most technically challenging strategic problems. For over 30 years, MTSi have achieved stable growth and have been recognized for their core values and commitment to their customers’ success. Joyce has a people focused and goal-oriented mindset, coupled with a strong functional and technical background. She has an excellent understanding of data management and its importance to successful business outcomes, which allows her to contribute to the development and implementation of a sustainable data management program. She is an international keynote speaker, a chapter Lead for Huntsville Women in Data Chapter, published in Army and Industry magazines and is also a member of Chief Data Officer Magazine's 2022 Global Data Power Women list. In today's episode, Joyce talks about: Her journey from an Air Force upbringing to Army logistics to data consulting, MTSi’s focus on delivering tech solutions within the public sector & national security, Prioritizing robust data management for internal and external success, Having a data-driven culture to foster success, How the AI trend underscores the need for effective data management, Focus on an employee-centric culture, quality service and societal impact

Today's guest is Tej Hemantharaj, Director, Technical Practice Lead at Fujitsu North America. Fujitsu North America understands that power comes from information, and your ability to optimize and manage it. They offer an extensive portfolio of business technology services, cloud services, computing platforms and industry solutions for sectors such as retail, manufacturing, healthcare, government, education and financial services. Fujitsu offer a range of support plans that allow you to choose the plan that best meets your business and financial needs. Tej is responsible for the technical vision and direction of the ServiceNow practice at Fujitsu North America. He leads a team of SMEs and oversee the design and architectural aspects of ServiceNow implementations, set and ensure good practices and advocate for innovation. Tej has over 12 years of experience in ServiceNow, specializing in IT Operations Management, Asset Management, Customer Service Management, Service Portfolio Management, Automated Test Framework, Service Portal and ITSM and many more implementations. In today's episode, Tej will discuss: His background and overview of his work with Fujitsu, How Fujitsu transforms with Kozuchi AI and promotes diverse solutions, Impacting manufacturing, public sector, utilities & supply chain with AI, Challenges in data quality, realistic expectations, cultural adoption and roadmaps, Seeking talent in Machine Learning, especially vision and text, Offering growth, innovation and sustainability missions

Today's guest is Julian Tucker, Chief Engineer – ServiceNow Architect at Booz Allen Hamilton. Founded in 1914, Booz Allen Hamilton transform missions with tomorrow’s technologies to advance the country’s most critical civil, defense and national security priorities. Trusted as the largest provider of AI to the federal government, they combine leading AI, cybersecurity and engineering with emerging tech to deliver results at the heart of their clients’ missions.  Julian is an experienced and hands on software architect creating enterprise software solutions for government and commercial customers. His expertise covers a broad range of custom and COTS systems development with an emphasis on business process improvement, integration, automation and collaboration. He is responsible for leading the solutioning, development and delivery of ServiceNow solutions at Booz Allen, including ITSM, ITBM, CSM, SecOps, ITOM, Discovery, HRSD, IRM, custom apps, integrations, as well as other custom software solutions. In this episode, Julian talks about: His journey into the world of ServiceNow, An insight into Booz Allen’s ServiceNow practice for federal health agencies, How government advances with cutting-edge tech integration into ServiceNow, Why Booz Allen and government are heavily investing in ServiceNow expansion, What makes Booz Allen a great place to work

Today's guest is John Elder, Founder and Chair at Elder Research. In 1995, John started Elder Research to help clients solve some of their most complex and challenging business problems leveraging data science. Over the last 28 years, Elder Research has grown to a team of about 150 data scientists, engineers and support staff who are deeply passionate about the craft, practice and deployment of data science & machine learning solutions. They apply their craft to serve clients in the public and private sectors, as well as domestically and internationally. With offices in Charlottesville, VA, Baltimore, MD, Raleigh, NC, Washington D.C. and London, Elder Research have solved hundreds of challenges for commercial and government clients by extracting actionable knowledge from all types of data. John has co-authored three books on practical data mining, ensembles and text mining - two of which won “book of the year” awards. John has also created data mining tools, was a discoverer of ensemble methods, chairs international conferences, and is a popular workshop and keynote speaker. In today's episode, John will discuss: His background & journey from engineer to entrepreneur, Specializing in national security, anti-fraud and commercial projects, Why Project implementation is hindered by fear of change, Focus on mentoring, teamwork and humility in data science, Excelling in complex problem-solving from oil wells to drug discovery, Growth plans in seeking talented individuals for diverse opportunities