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South African crowd-solving startup Zindi building a community of data scientists and using AI to solve real-world problems – TechCrunch

Zindi is all about using AI to solve real-world problems for companies and individuals. And the South Africa-based crowd-solving startup has done that over the last three years they have been in existence.

Just last year a team of data scientists under Zindi used machine learning to improve air quality monitoring in Kampala as another group helped Zimnat, an insurance company in Zimbabwe, predict customer behavior especially on who was likely to leave and the possible interventions that would make them stay. Zimnat was able to retain its customers by offering custom-made services to those who would have otherwise discontinued.

These are some of the solutions that have been realized to counter the data-centered challenges that companies, NGOs and government institutions submit to Zindi.

Zindi announces these challenges and invites its community of data scientists to take part in solution-finding competitions. Participating data scientists submit their solutions and the winner gets a cash prize. The hosts of the competitions get to use the best results to overcome the challenge they had like in an air quality monitoring project by AirQo, which sought solutions for forecasting air pollution across Uganda, and in helping Zimnat cut its losses.

So AirQo now has a dashboard that allows the public to check air quality and air quality forecasts. One of the exciting things about this project is that AirQo hired two of the winners from the challenge to help with the implementation of the project, said Zindi co-founder and CEO, Celina Lee. South African Megan Yates and Ghanaian Ekow Duker are the platforms other co-founders.

AirQo also raised funding from Google, based on the solution that they built, and theyll now be replicating it in other African countries, said Lee about the competition that was organised in partnership with the Digital Air Quality East Africa (DAQ EA) project of the University of Birmingham and the AirQo project from Makerere University, Kampala.

Zindi is a database of data scientists across Africa. The crowd-solving startup recently secured $1 million in seed funding. Photo Credits: Zindi

Among other notable private and public organizations that have tapped Zindi include Microsoft, IBM, Liquid Telecom and UNICEF, and the government of South Africa.

So far, Lee is excited about what Zindi has achieved and is enthusiastic about the communitys future, given how the crowd-solving startup has grown since launch. The platform is now providing alternatives and stepping up competition against traditional consulting firms operating across Africa, which are often expensive.

Zindis users have grown three-fold from the start of last year, to 33,000 data scientists from 45 countries across the continent. It has also paid data scientists $300,000 in prize money.

This number is set to grow as it hosts the third inter-university Umoja Hack Africa challenge in March next year, where college students will compete against one another for different solutions.

Zindi is using the inter-university competition to expose students to practical data science experiences and to solve real-life challenges using AI. During last years event the platform attracted about 2,000 students during the event that took place virtually because of the pandemic.

Students get to build their first machine learning models, and from there, it opens up all kinds of doors for their careers and education, said Lee, who is originally from San Francisco.

Zindi currently has a jobs portal to shorten the path from learning to earning. The talent placement portal allows organizations to tap from its pool of talent by posting openings.

The crowd-solving platform is also planning to introduce a learning component that provides training material to budding data scientists; this is after it realized a knowledge gap and need for training. Besides, Lee said that most of Zindis users are university students in need of learning experience, and who require enhanced skills to solve world problems.

The new plans will be made possible by a $1 million seed funding the platform recently secured.

Image Credits: Zindi

Lee said, For us, its really about scaling the community and creating more value for all of our data scientists.

So were going to be using the funding to introduce much more learning content, because one of the things we understand is that, especially in Africa, data science is such a new field. And a lot of our data scientists are still university students or very early in their careers. And theyre just looking for a chance to learn and build their skills.

The seed round was led by San-Francisco based VC firm Shakti, with participation from Launch Africa, Founders Factory Africa and FIVE35.

All these plans are toward building a strong data science community in Africa and for the continent, according to Lee, who said that they want to grow their users to reach one million in the near future. This, she said, will be achieved by opening up training opportunities to early career data scientists and by forming a strong community that encourages collaboration and mentorship.

Lee said, And so where we want to eventually reach a million data scientists in Africa we want to make data science something that any young person whos interested in pursuing this career has access to the tools, the connections and the experience that they need to make a successful career in this field.

Our vision is to make AI accessible to everyone.

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Equity Data Science Appoints Theresa Elamparo as Head of Marketing – Business Wire

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Equity Data Science (EDS), a cloud-based analytics platform provider that delivers decision support tools for the investment process to hedge funds and asset managers, has named Theresa Elamparo as Head of Marketing to accelerate the companys business strategy and growth plan. Elamparo will lead all brand, marketing and communications strategies to continue to build the brand and to focus on the expansion of the business. She will be based in New York.

Elamparo brings 23 years of marketing communications experience, serving the fintech community for 16 years, most recently as Chief Marketing Officer at Tier1 Financial Solutions where she was the recipient of the 2019 Markets Media Women in Finance award for Excellence in Marketing and Communications for her work leading Tier1s rebrand and building the firms marketing organization. Prior to that, she held marketing leadership roles at fintech firms including Ipreo, Investment Technology Group and Tradeweb Markets.

We are thrilled to have Theresa join our leadership team, said Greg McCall, President and Co-founder at EDS. Her wealth of experience within the financial services industry and strategic marketing expertise will be integral to expanding our global footprint as we deliver on growing demand for data aggregation, analytics, workflow and scalable decision support for the fundamental investment process.

Im delighted to join EDS at such an exciting time, Elamparo said. The fundamental investment community is faced with fragmentation, underutilized data and technical inefficiencies. EDS provides a modular, decision-support workflow platform for the full investment lifecycle, helping clients better manage their process to maximize returns.

Throughout 2021, EDS invested heavily in building out solid leadership across key functions, including the appointment of Jen Vermeulen, CFA as Head of Sales, and Erin Greenfield as Head of Customer Success. These recent appointments strengthen EDSs ability to expand its position in fundamental investing. At the start of the year, Northern Trust announced a strategic investment in EDS, allowing for integration of EDSs decision-support tools with Northern Trusts core technology platforms to provide highly specialized and innovative solutions to the most sophisticated institutional investors across the globe.

ABOUT EQUITY DATA SCIENCEEquity Data Science (EDS) empowers fundamental investors to build, operate and sustain a modernized, repeatable investment process by aggregating data sources and refining workflows to govern investment decisions. EDS provides a fully configurable, measurable, and scalable platform with purpose-built analytics to support idea generation, research management, portfolio construction and risk management. Visit us at http://www.equitydatascience.com.

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Doma’s Chief Data Science Officer Andy Mahdavi Named 2021 HousingWire Tech Trendsetter – Business Wire

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Doma Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: DOMA), a leading force for disruptive change in the real estate industry, announced today that Andy Mahdavi, Chief Data Science Officer at Doma, was recognized as a 2021 Tech Trendsetter by HousingWire. The third annual list identifies the most impactful and innovative technology leaders serving the housing economy.

HousingWires 2021 Tech Trendsetters are made up of the top product and technology leaders who have been essential in bringing innovative tech solutions to market for housing industry clients, and the award recognizes the people who drive innovation for their mortgage and real estate clients.

Recognized as an interdisciplinary leader with over 20 years of experience bringing large datasets and scientific rigor to fields ranging from financial services to astrophysics, Mahdavi and his team are leveraging machine intelligence to build uniquely differentiated, technology-first solutions to all those involved in the closing of a real estate transaction including lenders, real estate professionals, and ultimately the homeowner. At Doma, Mahdavi led the deployment of the first title insurance model of its kind, which determines risk for title defects using proprietary algorithms inspired by his past experience in these diverse applications of statistics.

Through its machine intelligence driven-approach, Doma has been able to return the majority of title commitments through its Doma Intelligence platform in about 1 minute instead of the industry standard 3-5 days and in some cases is able to take a closing from over 45 days to less than one week. As a result, Doma counts Chase, PennyMac, Wells Fargo, among other large mortgage originators and lenders, as its customers.

Its an exciting opportunity to build technology that drives such profound transformation of an industry long overdue for change, said Andy Mahdavi, Chief Data Science Officer at Doma. Homeowners across the U.S. are closing their mortgages faster and more reliably through technology enabled by our machine learning algorithms, and I am honored to be recognized for this achievement among other talented technology leaders.

This years list of Tech Trendsetters have, yet again, proven to be the driving force behind the digital transformation in housing, HousingWire Editor and Chief Sarah Wheeler said. This impressive list of honorees are finding solutions to some of the industry's toughest challenges from improving the borrowers journey to streamlining every step of the real estate transaction process.

The 2021 Tech Trendsetters were carefully selected by HousingWires editorial selection committee based on their vital and dynamic contributions to their organizations and to the industry as a whole. Profiles of the 2021 HW Tech Trendsetters honorees can be found here.

About Doma Holdings, Inc.

Doma (NYSE: DOMA) is architecting the future of real estate transactions. The company uses machine intelligence and its proprietary technology solutions to transform residential real estate, making closings instant and affordable. Doma and its family of brands States Title, North American Title Company (NATC) and North American Title Insurance Company (NATIC) offer solutions for current and prospective homeowners, lenders, title agents, and real estate professionals that make closings vastly more simple and efficient, reducing cost and increasing customer satisfaction. Domas clients include some of the largest bank and non-bank lenders in the United States. To learn more visit doma.com.

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Why is Blockchain the Next Big Thing for Data Science? – Analytics Insight

Blockchain is the next big thing for data science

Innovative technologies such as big data and blockchain are being hailed as the next big things that will change the way businesses operate. Majority of us believe that these technologies are totally exclusive, with each having its own route of being employed independently. While data science focuses on using data for efficient administration, blockchains distributed ledger protects the data protection. These technologies offer a lot of untapped promise in terms of improving efficiency and productivity.

There hasnt been much work into the connection between blockchain and data science, if there is one. To put it another way, data is at the heart of each of these technologies. Data science focuses on generating relevant insights from the data for problem-solving, whereas blockchain certifies and stores data. Algorithms are used in each of these technologies to regulate interactions with various data segments. In a nutshell, data science is used to predict and blockchain is used to validate data.

Peer-to-peer partnerships are made easier using blockchain. If a published account, for example, fails to adequately explain any approach, any peer can analyse the entire process and determine how the results were reached.

Anyone can learn whether data is accurate to use, how to preserve it, how to update it, where it originates from and how to utilise it properly thanks to the ledgers open channels. To conclude, blockchain technology will allow users to track data from start to finish.

Real-time data analysis is extremely tough. The most effective approach of detecting fraudsters is to be capable of monitoring developments in real time. For a long period of time, though, real-time analysis wasnt really possible. Companies can now detect any irregularities in the dataset from the outset, thanks to blockchains decentralized nature.

Spreadsheets have a feature that allows you to see modifications in data in real time. Similarly, blockchain allows two or more individuals to collaborate on the same data and information.

The data in blockchains digital log is kept in a variety of nodes, both private and public. The data is cross-checked and examined at the entrance point before being added to further blocks. This procedure in and of itself is a means of data verification.

When data flows smoothly and easily, there are numerous benefits for organisations. With paper records, its quite tough. This problem is exacerbated when the information contained within it is needed elsewhere. True, these data will get the other division, but it may take a long time and there is a possibility that they will be lost in the process.

Several data scientists are interested in blockchain today because it allows two or more individuals to view data simultaneously and in real time.

As a result, when data moves freely, the administrative process becomes more efficient.

Biases are common when there is a central body, as you are well aware. Putting too much faith in one person might be dangerous. Because of trust difficulties, many businesses refuse to provide other parties access to their data. Sharing information becomes virtually impossible as a result of this. The trust issue does not stand in the way of exchange of information with the block chain. By sharing the knowledge, they have at their availability, businesses can interact efficiently.

The primary focus of corporations in the past decade was on increasing data storage capacity. That was fixed by the end of 2018. The new issue for most businesses is securing and validating the datas authenticity.

The fundamental reason for this is that organisations collect data from various sources. Even data gathered from government institutions or generated domestically can be prone to inaccuracies. Furthermore, data from other sources, such as social networks, may be erroneous.

Data scientists are now employing blockchain technology to assure data validity and trace it across the chain. Its unchangeable security is among the reasons for its widespread acceptance. Data is safeguarded at every step by multiple signatures on blockchains decentralised record. The precise signatures must be provided in order for anyone to obtain access to the data. As a result, occurrences of data hacking and breaches are greatly reduced.

The following are some of blockchains security aspects that are beneficial to data science:

Every transaction that occurs in Blockchains record is encrypted using complicated mathematical techniques. These transactions are recorded as digital contracts that are both immutable and irrevocable.

Data scientists frequently keep track of their companys information in data lakes. When using blockchain to monitor the provenance of data, it is recorded in a distinct block with a unique cryptographic key. This ensures that everybody who uses the data has the correct key from the person who created it, indicating that the data is correct, of excellent quality and authentic.

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Jaguar Land Rover gets more from graph analytics – CIO UK

The pandemic has been a perfect storm for Jaguar Land Rovers core business, including a two-month factory shutdown, a semiconductor shortage, and profound challenges with both supply and demand. But thanks to advanced data analytics, the British multinational automotive company not only weathered this storm, but has done so with more precision and profit than expected.

JLRs 40-person data science and analytics team has developed an innovative forecasting engine atop a mixed proprietary/open source stack to the tune of 100 million in revenue during each of the past three years, with 2 million in profit directly attributed to JLRs data team in 2020 despite a disastrous global pandemic, says Harry Powell, director of data and analytics at JLR.

One of the key parts of our strategy has been implementing graph technology in the business, and weve had some reasonably good results applying it to the supply chain, says Powell, noting that JLRs use of graph database technology from TigerGraph has been critical in reducing the automakers supply chain planning from three weeks to 45 minutes.

JLR now plans to deploy graph database technology to address quality improvement and pricing applications for its automobiles.

As opposed to relational and non-SQL databases, graph databases detect, capture, and leverage connections among data stored or actively in use in business processes in real time, making them superior to relational databases when tackling challenges involving incidental and unpredictable relationships, says Carl Olafson, a research vice president at IDC.

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Top Technical Skills That Get People Hired, According to HackerRank – Business Insider

With a labor shortage straining the tech industry, companies are desperate for qualified engineers.

But Big Tech hasn't let up on its infamously intensive interview process. And a few skills are especially in demand as companies screen job candidates.

By brushing up on the skills companies test for, candidates can get the leg up they need to stand out in the tech hiring process. HackerRank, a website that companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Stripe use to search for would-be recruits and conduct interviews, told Insider the top five software skills that tech companies are testing for right now.

The most in-demand skills include popular programming languages but also other software-oriented competencies, like a financial-services software program. HackerRank compiled the data from year-to-date tests, measured through its customer base of 2,600 companies and 16 million developers.

Overall, the list signals that companies are interested in data-management skills, especially within the past year. Companies are increasingly screening for the skills and software needed to manage data visualization, modeling, and cleaning complex data, according to Vivek Ravisankar, CEO of HackerRank.

"Especially as more companies are trying to become more tech forward, data science and machine learning have come up quite a bit," Ravisankar told Insider.

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Media statements – $2.4 million for data science and cybersecurity innovation hubs to support start-up and SME growth – Media Statements

Support for the expanding fields of cybersecurity and data science is set to continue across the State, with the McGowan Government committing a total of $2.4 million to the Western Australian AustCyber Innovation Hub and the WA Data Science Innovation Hub.

Funded through the State Government's $16.7 million New Industries Fund, each hub will receive $300,000 per year for the next four years to drive further growth in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

The New Industries Fund supports and accelerates WA's innovative start-ups, emerging businesses and SMEs to diversify local and regional economies and create jobs. Provisions to continue the fund until 2025 were made in the 2021-22 State Budget.

The WA AustCyber Innovation Hub was established to address cybersecurity, with a focus on critical infrastructure, cybercrime and big data. The hub is a successful collaboration between the WA Government, Edith Cowan University, the national industry growth centre AustCyber and the City of Joondalup.

It delivers expert services to actively support the growth of innovative cybersecurity businesses through inception and development to commercialisation.

The WA Data Science Innovation Hub focuses on helping WA build a data driven ecosystem and culture that fosters collaboration, promotes expertise and advocates for data literacy in a partnership between Curtin University and the WA Government.

The hub helps to ensure WA remains at the forefront of the digital revolution by building capability and capacity through the use of stored and collected data.

First established in 2018, both the WA AustCyber Innovation Hub and the WA Data Science Innovation Hub operate a range of programs in regional areas and the renewed funding will ensure those programs can continue.

More information on the Innovation Hubs is available here.

Comments attributed to Innovation and ICT Minister Don Punch:

"The ability to take innovations successfully to market is essential to diversifying our economy, and creating more jobs for Western Australians.

"Over the past three years, both the WA AustCyber Innovation Hub and the WA Data Science Innovation Hub have helped create an environment for the State's start-ups to succeed and for existing businesses to expand further.

"The McGowan Government's commitment to continuing funding both hubs will enable them to expand their existing strong metropolitan and regional support so more emerging businesses and SMEs can benefit from expert guidance with developing and commercialising their products and services."

Minister's office -6552 6900

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Vinehealth, offering digital support for cancer patients and SaaS for R&D, gets $5.5M to launch in the US – TechCrunch

Vinehealth, a 2018-founded, London-based digital health startup thats built an app offering personalized support for cancer patients while also making it easier to gather patient-reported outcome (PRO) data, including for drug development and clinical trials, has closed a $5.5 million seed round as it prepares to expand into the U.S.

The round, which co-founder and CTO Georgina Kirby describes as a late seed ahead of a planned Series A in the next 12-18 months is led by Talis Capital with participation from previous investorsPlayfair CapitalandAscension.

A number of angel investors have also joined the round, including Keith Gibbs, former CEO of AXA PPP Healthcare; Pam Garside, partner at Newhealth; Voyagers Health-Tech Fund, led by David Rowan, founding editor of Wired; David Giampaolo, healthcare entrepreneur and founder of PI Capital; Deepali Nangia, venture partner at Speedinvest and Atomico Angel; Faisal Mehmud, VP and former medical director of Bristol Myers Squibb; and KHP MedTech Innovations, a collaboration between Kings College London, Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guys and St Thomas NHS Trust.

The startup which we billed as one to watch back in 2019 when we saw the founders pitching at Entrepreneur Firsts demo day combines behavioral science and AI to deliver timely patient support and nudges (for things like medication reminders) so they can more easily self-manage their treatment.

Vinehealths platform also acts as a channel through which patients can be remotely monitored by their clinicians as they provide feedback on symptoms and report any treatment side-effects.

So far its app has been downloaded around 15,000 times since being made available in January 2020 which Kirby confirms covers all usage to date, so both for pure patient-support and for trials/research.

The patient-support app is offered free for cancer patients to download themselves currently available in the U.K. and Ireland.

For pharma, Vinehealth provides its platform as a software as a service supporting drug companies in recruiting patients for trials and gathering PRO to help with R&D and drug development.

Weve been focused on pharma since the very beginning and were getting a lot of traction there and seeing a lot of opportunity, said Kirby. The patient support program and the clinical trial are extremely similar [products]. For pharma theyre different parts of the drug development process but in terms of the delivery of software, the things that patients need throughout that process its extremely similar. So weve really narrowed down to that life science offering.

She confirms Vinehealth is not going down the procurement route of trying to sell to healthcare services directly. So essentially the idea is for life sciences research to fund a free provision of the support software to patients. (Although it cant disclose any pharma customer names as yet.)

For monetization, its focused on serving the needs of drug companies, Vinehealth is equally keen to be seen as patient-centric and wants its app to play a key clinician support role that promotes better patient outcomes.

We have a web dashboard that is accessible through any browser for clinicians and doctors who want to be able to track their patients remotely and do this through running research studies or even within clinical trials, said Kirby. Those doctors and nurses can see that data in real-time but they can feed that into either appropriate points of the care pathway obviously theyre not sitting there on the dashboard all day, but there may times at which its very useful for them to see specific red flags and be able to know which patient to see first and also to know how to make better clinical decisions using that kind of more real-time data rather than the typical [fortnightly or monthly catch up with a patient].

So its kind of giving them that context and that rich longitudinal data that theyve never had, she added.

Vinehealth has digitized the traditional paper-based questionnaires that cancer patients would typically be asked to fill in during a visit with their clinical team to report their symptoms and provide any wider feedback.

Its premise is that moving that legacy process to a dedicated, user-friendly digital interface supports better patient self-management, treatment outcomes and improved quality of life for people living with cancer given the relative ease of reporting data via an app, combined with the wider support package it offers (its worked with charities Macmillan and Bowel Cancer UK to supply support content to the app).

For example, Kirby said they use A/B testing and AI to configure personalized and timely recommendations to surface appropriate resources, as well as to determine how best to nudge and motivate patients to take medications and manage what can be complex medication regimes for cancer treatment.

Vinehealths app wrapper can also dole out positive feedback to encourage patients to provide PRO.

Kirby points toevidence that when patients track their PRO data effectively, survival rates can increase by up to 20%. Better self-management can have such a huge impact on survival, she said. We want to show not only improvements in survival but in quality of life. too.

The blend of behavioral science and data-driven support Vinehealths approach involves stems from the combined expertise of the co-founders.

Raynas [Patel; co-founder and CEO] background is really in behavioral science; mine is in data science, said Kirby. And so when we came together, we thought we can really leverage both sides here and use the data to understand what people are going through and where those nudges can be most effective. And use behavioral science to deliver some really key nudges at the right time with the right wording that can really nudge people to build their habits and be able to feel more in control and be able to actually understand whats going on and make some better decisions for their own care.

There are a number of nudges in the app some small ones, some bigger ones. We build medication nudges and reminders to be delivered in a certain way that is really effective and isnt just dismissed by patients. We have nudges for logging certain symptoms and what that leads on to so certain supportive content. So youre logging anxiety at certain levels, heres some supportive content that could really help you with dealing with this particular symptom or side effect of your drug.

At different times its about the timing, the wording and the delivery of that nudge, she added. If you try to change too many things at once research shows that you dont change anything at all so weve really carefully thought about how we nudge and how we try to help patients build better habits and how often we do that as well.

Kirby says the goal in time is also to use AI to incorporate more advanced suggestions into the platform in the future, such as predictive symptom logging, i.e., what is likely to occur for this particular drug for this particular patient.

For now, Vinehealth has built a content recommender system that is specialized in oncology and personalized to the patient: tuned to their diagnosis, adapting to their ongoing input, and factoring in content that other similar patients are reading and finding supportive.

On the research side, Kirby says the largest study the platform has been used for to date is an ongoing study involving nine NHS Trusts and 300 patients which is a piece of research that Vinehealth is undertaking itself.

Health data is of course highly sensitive, and Kirby confirmed that consent for any third-party research purposes is sought separately to the consent a user of the patient-support product is asked for so that Vinehealth can process their medical information to provide the service and give them personalized treatment support.

That data is not shared with anybody unless they have [given] explicit consent to do that. By just signing up to the platform, theyre not consenting to sharing their data as part of a clinical trial. That is a completely separate piece of consent, she said.

We make it extremely clear and dont want to hide any sharing in any way it has to be really obvious and really clear to a patient. Ultimately everyone wants to support patients. They want to give more opportunities for patients to be in those clinical trials, to be able to capture that data and feed that back in a way where normally theyre suffering at home with these kind of side effects and thats never getting back to the pharma company, for example so were making it really clear what were doing and why were doing that and we give patients a choice.

Kirby suggested that, in the future, the startup may also look to be able to provide properly anonymized data sets based on purely aggregated insights provided by patients so it might, for example, be able to highlight demographic groups that experience particular side effects of certain drugs. However, she added that that is not something its doing at the moment given our focus on trials and patient support programs.

In the near term, Vinehealth is gearing up for growth via a U.S. launch which it hopes will happen early next year with the 18-strong team likely to double over the next six months or so and its first U.S. hire already locked in.

The main thing that weve been focused on since we fundraised is hiring a great team and growing that team and investing time in really building that out and making sure that everyones aligned on the mission and that were really building out a product thats scalable to be able to take into these new markets, Kirby said. Building a startup is all about having great people. You can have great technology but if you dont have great people, then you dont really have anything.

Commenting on the seed funding in a statement, Beatrice Aliprandi, principal at Talis Capital, said: Were hugely excited to be partnering with Rayna and Georgina: Wed been keeping a close eye on Vinehealths growth for several months before we invested in the company, given its unique value proposition where healthcare outcomes work in direct correlation with financial outcomes. Its a win-win-win for patients, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, which is rarely the case in the healthcare space where parties are often at odds with one another.

From our first meeting, the resilience and mission-driven attitude of the founders was immediately clear and is really what made this opportunity so compelling. Both Rayna and Georgina are clearly incredibly driven to improve the lives and survival of cancer patients, and as a team they possess a unique combination of expertise, skills, and drive to make Vinehealth a success.

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Problem-Solving And Discussion With Experts Are The Best Methods For Studying A Subject: Sumanta Mukherjee, IBM – Analytics India Magazine

Chemical engineering and applied mathematics are very rare combinations. Sumanta Mukherjee, a research scientist at IBM, possesses this rare broad knowledge base. Sumanta is an experienced research scientist with a track record of accomplishments in the information technology and services industries.

In addition, Sumanta is a researcher with expertise in machine learning, data science, mathematical modelling, computational biology, bioinformatics, and algorithm design. Analytics India Magazine caught up with him to gain insights into his perspectives on some of these topics.

AIM: Given that the beginning of your career was not in data science, you have climbed up the ladder certainly well. What would you say were the obstacles in starting your path in data science, and what approach did you take to overcome them?

Sumanta Mukherjee: I have a diverse career path. I started my career as a chemical engineer. Then pursued higher study in computational science, followed by a PhD in applied mathematics.

Post completion of every degree, I have worked with industries for a few years. I have worked as a process engineer, software developer, and currently, researcher.

After completion of my PhD, I have joined IBM Research, Bangalore. I am grateful to the great set of colleagues I had at my workplace. IBM Research has a very diverse, open, and inclusive environment. Therefore, most of my learning was via interaction with the experts in the field and while solving a targeted problem.

From my experience, the best way to learn a topic is by solving a problem and discussing it with people who have experience in that field and making continuous attempts to improvise your solution.

Data science is no different. One big benefit is free access to a large community and freely available resources. However, data science is expanding at a tremendous pace, which is a challenge to keep up. It demands continuous reading and updating yourself with the trend.

A strong grasp of mathematics, statistics, and programming helps a lot. There are two important dimensions to data science,

Keeping up with both is difficult. So, better keep your attention on one specific dimension.

AIM: How significant is participation in hackathons and similar competitions when pursuing a career in data science?

Sumanta Mukherjee: It is very important, and the benefits are multi-faceted

There are also data science-specific competitions, like Kaggle. Anyone seriously pursuing a data science career should be a part of the Kaggle community.

AIM: As someone with a research background and considerable experience working with research laboratories, could you emphasise the importance of research and the areas where companies should focus their efforts in machine learning?

Sumanta Mukherjee: My answer to this question will be biased. My experience is restricted to the IBM research lab, composed of a very able set of individuals.

I think industries are doing very well in finding challenging questions for the research community.

One purpose is to use data science and ML to support the current industry, and the other is to explore new questions. Most industries focus on addressing the first purpose where there is a direct business value. The second purpose is more academic, but it may help improve the future of science and industry. Therefore, I hope industries in India increase their academic collaborations to achieve a balanced and sustainable future.

One specific challenge to the application of data science is ethical restriction. Data can reveal many insights which may violate ethics. Therefore, defining rules and regulations around the application of data science and an effort to build algorithms that respect ethical restrictions should be prioritised.

AIM: Your research and industry experience has focussed on applied mathematics and energy efficiency. When effective energy management is critical, how do you believe data scientists can help solve these problems in todays environment?

Sumanta Mukherjee: I indeed joined IBM research, the smart energy group, but currently, I am a part of the retail-supply-chain team.

Data science is a tool to understand and comprehend a large volume of data. Data is in a plethora today. In any field, the volume of data is increasing exponentially. In this context, I will emphasise the two primary goals of data science,

(1) estimation and

(2) knowledge mining (eXplainable AI).

Estimation helps in taking a reactive approach to addressing a problem, while knowledge mining may help us adopt a proactive strategy to address a problem.

If we ask the right question, data science can help us in finding a comprehensive answer. Data science is a tool to help the progress of science and technology if used correctly.

AIM: Which machine learning/deep learning algorithm is your go-to and why?

Sumanta Mukherjee: Every algorithm has a different purpose. The selection of an algorithm depends on the problem. Often, we need to customise the input-output to cast the problem appropriate for an algorithm. Sometimes we may need to tweak the algorithm to cater to the problem.

In the structured data domain, one algorithm stands out XGBoost. There are many competing alternatives, but it is always my first algorithm of choice to address structured data regression/classification problems. The large adoption of this algorithm in the applied machine learning community is due to its stability, scalability, and easy library interface. In addition, many explainability tools help in deriving insights from the trained model.

AIM: What suggestions would you provide to someone seeking their first data science position?

Sumanta Mukherjee:

AIM: The rate of advancement in this field, particularly in deep learning, is unmatched. What will be the next frontier for algorithms based on deep learning?

Sumanta Mukherjee: Deep learning is the current trend. What makes it beautiful, the basic building block of a deep learning model is extremely simple, but when put together as a system, it can do magic. Exponential growth in participation of the NeurIPS conference is a direct indicator of its growing popularity.

AIM: Many publicly available datasets can be used to enhance our machine learning abilities. What kind of projects should aspiring data scientists work on to improve their resumes for todays job market, in your opinion?

Sumanta Mukherjee:

AIM: Please share with us the names of role models for you, if any. How has their work inspired you?

Sumanta Mukherjee: Richard P Feynman, is my role model since my childhood. I have always admired his way of understanding and explaining concepts. How easily we can explain it to others shows how well we understand the concept. Only when we understand something well enough (not by jargon, but by its basic functions) can we improvise the system or find flaws. Therefore, an in-depth understanding of the fundamentals of data science is essential.

AIM: Are there any research papers that you think every data scientist should read?

Sumanta Mukherjee: Research papers are very application-specific. There are tons of them, and its hard to list them all. I recommend articles by Geoffrey Hinton that are a must-read for those who want to work in deep learning. I closely follow the work by Bernhard Schlkopf, Yoshua Bengio, and Michael Jordan.

A few texts books for avid data scientists are listed below

Machine Learning Tom Mitchell

Pattern Classification David Stork, Peter Hart, Richard Duda

Machine learning: A probabilistic perspective Kevin Murphy

Deep Learning Aaron Courville, Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio

A Probabilistic Theory of Pattern Recognition Luc Devroye, Laszlo Gyorfi, Gabor Lugosi

The Elements of Statistical Learning Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani, Jerome Friedman

Statistical Rethinking: A Bayesian Course with Examples in R and Stan Richard McElreath

Elements of Information Theory Joy Thomas, Thomas Cover

Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms David Mackay

Learning in Graphical Models Michael Jordan

Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques to Build Intelligent Systems Aurelien Geron

Link:

Problem-Solving And Discussion With Experts Are The Best Methods For Studying A Subject: Sumanta Mukherjee, IBM - Analytics India Magazine

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SK life science Presents Long-Term Data of XCOPRI (cenobamate tablets) CV in Adults with Partial-Onset Seizures at the American Epilepsy Society 2021…

PARAMUS,N.J., Dec. 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --SK Life Science, Inc., a subsidiary of SK Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd., an innovative global pharmaceutical company focused on developing treatments for central nervous system (CNS) disorders, will present new post-hoc, retrospective analyses of the long-term safety and efficacy of its anti-seizure medication (ASM) XCOPRI (cenobamate tablets) CV at the American Epilepsy Society (AES) Annual Meeting, held December 3-7, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois and virtually through AES 2021 Digital Select. The analyses examined data collected from a subset of 240 patients with partial-onset seizures who participated in the long-term, open-label multicenter phase 3 safety study (C021). As of the last clinic visit analyzed on or after September 1, 2019, 74% (n=177) of patients remained on XCOPRI with results showing early onset responder rates and high rates of sustained seizure reductions across a variety of seizure types for as long as 43 months (median 30.2 months).1,2

In an analysis of patients by focal seizure subtype including focal aware motor (FAM), focal impaired awareness (FIA), and focal to bilateral tonic-clonic (FBTC), seizure reductions of at least 50% occurred in 56% (15/27) of FAM patients, 51% (114/223) of FIA patients, and 70% of FBTC patients during the initial 12-week titration phase.1 Seizure reductions of 100% were observed during titration in 22% (6/27), 22% (48/223), and 50% (28/56) of the FAM, FIA, and FBTC seizure subtype groups, respectively. During months 24-27, complete seizure reduction occurred in 48% (11/23) of patients with FAM seizures, 54% (88/162) of patients with FIA seizures, and 91% (38/42) of patients with FBTC seizures.1 Additionally, in an analysis of patients (n=85) who had previously received epilepsy-related surgery and continued to experience frequent seizures (average 26 seizures per month), 31% (26/85) maintained seizure freedom for at least 12 consecutive months during exposure to cenobamate (median exposure ~2.5 years).2

"I am encouraged to see that patients across a variety of focal seizure subtypes are having a response to treatment with XCOPRI for an extended period of time," said William E. Rosenfeld, MD, epileptologist/neurologist principal investigator at the Comprehensive Epilepsy Care Center for Children and Adults in St. Louis, Missouri. "Based on these findings, XCOPRI may be an option for patients both early in their treatment regimen as well as later on, if prior treatments including surgery have been unsuccessful."

Safety data in this patient subset is consistent with the safety data in the larger cohort from the C021 study4, with the most commonly observed treatment-emergent adverse events being fatigue, dizziness, and somnolence.1,2

SK life science is presenting six posters at AES, which are available here. To see the SK life science virtual booth at AES, please visit StepIntoXcopri.com.

About Study C021Study C021 was a large, multi-center, open-label Phase 3 study assessing the safety of cenobamate as adjunctive therapy in 1,340 adults (18-70 years old) with uncontrolled focal seizures taking 1-3 anti-seizure medications (ASMs). The objectives of the study included the characterization of the long-term safety of cenobamate and to understand how to best add cenobamate to regimens that included phenytoin or phenobarbital. In addition, the study was designed to determine the rate of DRESS in at least 1,000 patients taking cenobamate for at least 6 months, using a low starting dose and every other week titration; no cases of DRESS occurred in the study. Cenobamate was initiated at 12.5 mg/day and increased at 2-week intervals to 25, 50, 100, 150 and 200 mg/day. Further increases to 400 mg/day using bi-weekly 50 mg/day increments were allowed.

AboutXCOPRI (cenobamatetablets) CVCenobamateis an anti-seizure medication (ASM)discovered and developed by SK Biopharmaceuticals and SK life science. While theprecise mechanism by whichcenobamateexerts its therapeutic effect is unknown, it is believed toreduce repetitive neuronal firing by inhibiting voltage-gated sodium currents. It is also a positiveallosteric modulator of the -aminobutyric acid (GABAA) ion channel.

Cenobamateis approved in the United States for the treatment ofpartial-onset seizures inadults andis available under the brand name XCOPRI (cenobamatetablets) CV.Cenobamatecan be combined with other ASMs or used alone.The recommended initial dosage ofcenobamateis 12.5 mg once-daily, with titration every two weeks; it is available in six tablet strengths for once-daily dosing: 12.5 mg, 25 mg, 50 mg, 100 mg, 150 mg and 200 mg.

Cenobamateis also approved in the European Union and the United Kingdomfor the adjunctive treatment of focal-onset (partial-onset) seizures with or without secondary generalization in adult patients with seizuresthathave not been adequately controlled despite a history of treatment with at least two anti-epileptic medicinalproductsand is marketed by Angelini Pharma under the brand nameONTOZRY.

Additionally,cenobamateis in clinical development in Asia. Ono Pharmaceutical and Ignis Therapeutics have the rights to develop and commercializecenobamatein Japan and in the Greater China region, respectively.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION AND INDICATION FOR XCOPRI(cenobamate tablets) CV

DO NOT TAKE XCOPRI IF YOU:

XCOPRI CAN CAUSE SERIOUS SIDE EFFECTS, INCLUDING:

Allergic reactions: XCOPRI can cause serious skin rash or other serious allergic reactions which may affect organs and other parts of your body like the liver or blood cells.You may or may not have a rash with these types of reactions. Call your healthcare provider right away and go to the nearest emergency room if you have any of the following: swelling of your face, eyes, lips, or tongue, trouble swallowing or breathing, a skin rash, hives, fever, swollen glands, or sore throat that does not go away or comes and goes, painful sores in the mouth or around your eyes, yellowing of your skin or eyes, unusual bruising or bleeding, severe fatigue or weakness, severe muscle pain, frequent infections, or infections that do not go away.Take XCOPRI exactly as your healthcare provider tells you to take it. It is very important to increase your dose of XCOPRI slowly, as instructed by your healthcare provider.

QT shortening: XCOPRI may cause problems with the electrical system of the heart (QT shortening).Call your healthcare provider if you have symptoms of QT shortening including fast heartbeat (heart palpitations) that last a long time or fainting.

Suicidal behavior and ideation:Antiepileptic drugs, including XCOPRI, may cause suicidal thoughts or actions in a very small number of people, about 1 in 500. Call your health care provider right away if you have any of the following symptoms, especially if they are new, worse, or worry you: thoughts about suicide or dying; attempting to commit suicide; new or worse depression, anxiety, or irritability; feeling agitated or restless; panic attacks; trouble sleeping (insomnia); acting aggressive; being angry or violent; acting on dangerous impulses; an extreme increase in activity and talking (mania); or other unusual changes in behavior or mood.

Nervous system problems:XCOPRI may cause problems that affect your nervous system. Symptoms of nervous system problems include: dizziness, trouble walking or with coordination, feeling sleepy and tired, trouble concentrating, remembering, and thinking clearly, and vision problems.Do not drive, operate heavy machinery, or do other dangerous activities until you know how XCOPRI affects you.

Do not drink alcohol or take other medicines that can make you sleepy or dizzy while taking XCOPRI without first talking to your healthcare provider.

DISCONTINUATION:

Do not stop taking XCOPRI without first talking to your healthcare provider.Stopping XCOPRI suddenly can cause serious problems. Stopping seizure medicine suddenly in a patient who has epilepsy can cause seizures that will not stop (status epilepticus).

DRUG INTERACTIONS:

XCOPRI may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines may affect how XCOPRI works.Do not start or stop other medicines without talking to your healthcare provider.Tell healthcare providers about all the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and herbal supplements.

PREGNANCY AND LACTATION:

XCOPRI may cause your birth control medicine to be less effective.Talk to your health care provider about the best birth control method to use.

Talk to your health care provider if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.It is not known if XCOPRI will harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you become pregnant while taking XCOPRI. You and your healthcare provider will decide if you should take XCOPRI while you are pregnant. If you become pregnant while taking XCOPRI, talk to your healthcare provider about registering with the North American Antiepileptic Drug (NAAED) Pregnancy Registry. The purpose of this registry is to collect information about the safety of antiepileptic medicine during pregnancy. You can enroll in this registry by calling 1-888-233-2334 or go towww.aedpregnancyregistry.org.

Talk to your health care provider if you are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed.It is not known if XCOPRI passes into breastmilk. Talk to your healthcare provider about the best way to feed your baby while taking XCOPRI.

COMMON SIDE EFFECTS:

The most common side effects in patients taking XCOPRI include dizziness, sleepiness, headache, double vision, and feeling tired.

These are not all the possible side effects of XCOPRI. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effect that bothers you or that does not go away. For more information, ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist.Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088or atwww.fda.gov/medwatch.

DRUG ABUSE:

XCOPRI is a federally controlled substance (CV) because it can be abused or lead to dependence.Keep XCOPRI in a safe place to prevent misuse and abuse. Selling or giving away XCOPRI may harm others and is against the law.

INDICATION:

XCOPRI is a prescription medicine used to treat partial-onset seizures in adults 18 years of age and older. It is not known if XCOPRI is safe and effective in children under 18 years of age.

Please see additional patient information in theMedication Guide. This information does not take the place of talking with your healthcare provider about your condition or your treatment.

Please see fullPrescribing Information.

About EpilepsyEpilepsy is the fourth most common neurological disorder. There are approximately 3.4 million people living with epilepsy in the United States, with 150,000 news cases each year in the country.4,5Epilepsy is characterized by recurrent, unprovoked seizures. The seizures in epilepsy may be related to a brain injury or a family tendency, but often the cause is completely unknown. Having seizures and epilepsy can affect one's safety, relationships, work, driving, and much more.6,7People with epilepsy are at risk for accidents and other health complications,including falling, drowning, depression and sudden unexplained death in epilepsy (SUDEP).6,7Despite the availability of many antiepileptic therapies, almost 40percentof people with epilepsy are not able to achieve seizure freedom, meaning they have epilepsy that remains uncontrolled.8

About SK Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. and SK Life Science, Inc.SK Biopharmaceuticals and its U.S. subsidiary SK life science are global pharmaceutical companies focused on the research, development and commercialization of treatments for disorders of the central nervous system (CNS). The companies have a pipeline of eight compounds in development for the treatment of CNS disorders, including epilepsy. Additionally, SK Biopharmaceuticals is focused on the discovery of new treatments in oncology. For more information, visit SK Biopharmaceuticals' website atwww.skbp.com/engand SK life science's website atwww.SKLifeScienceInc.com.

Both SK Biopharmaceuticals and SK life science are part of SK Group, one of the largest conglomerates in Korea. SK Inc., the parent company of SK Biopharmaceuticals, continues to enhance its portfolio value by executing long-term investments witha number ofcompetitive subsidiaries in various business areas, including pharmaceuticals and life science, energy and chemicals, information and telecommunication, and semiconductors. In addition, SK Inc. is focused on reinforcing its growth foundations through profitable and practical management based on financial stability, while raising its enterprise value by investing in new future growth businesses. For more information, please visithttp://hc.sk.co.kr/en/.

XCOPRI and ONTOZRY are registered trademarks of SK Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd.

References

SOURCE SK Life Science, Inc.

Link:

SK life science Presents Long-Term Data of XCOPRI (cenobamate tablets) CV in Adults with Partial-Onset Seizures at the American Epilepsy Society 2021...

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