AI & Machine Learning Awards 2021
Welcome to the
How do we choose the winners?
The entry is detailing something totally new, or has a new approach to an existing challenge
Find out the winners
Innovation
Relevance
The entry demonstrates an outstanding understanding of their chosen field
Success
The entry shows clear evidence of success, leadership and adoption
Introduction
The judginG process
What are these awards all about?
Although artificial intelligence is still very much the new kid on the block in terms of enterprise technology, its use is growing at a rapid rate. From basic data entry to high-value IT estate protection, AI now lives at the heart of the business. Beyond that, though, AI has the potential to entirely change the world we live in, and it’s doing so right now. From healthcare and the environment to traffic management and your Netflix recommendations the - robots are already here, and they’re helping you to buy stuff on Amazon. Computing’s AI & Machine Learning Awards recognise the best companies, individuals, and projects in the AI space today. The process covers every corner of the industry: security, ethics, data analysis, innovation and more, as well as showcasing the movers and shakers: the technology heroes and projects that deserve industry-wide praise. #AIMLAwards
contact
Contact
AWARD CATEGORIES
Home
|
find out more
About the sponsor
Delta is a new market analysis service from Computing that draws its research from independently sourced end-users. It reveals the real experiences of senior IT professionals, rather than the opinion of analysts or vendor hype. As an IT Leader you will no doubt be time-poor, bombarded with information and expected to have a broad and deep understanding of every technology area, including all the latest developments. Delta provides deep and easily-digestible insight into the key technology areas for today’s IT leaders just like you.
Get in touch
Who are the judges?
Tap each person
huseyin seker
Staffordshire University
Gareth Brace
Catalyst Housing
Gavin Carey
London Stock Exchange Group
Charles Ewen
MET Office
Aidan Hancock
Network Rail
Adrian Woodhead
Expedia Group
Louise McCarthy
Recognise Bank
Umesh Parekh
Education Development Trust
tom allen
Computing
Huseyin is a research-oriented and enterprise-focused academic and manager with both academic and industry experiences in data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and emerging & disruptive technologies/systems. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and has been involved with a portfolio of collaborative research, enterprise and teaching/learning projects of over £20M as PI, Co-I and international researcher in collaboration with universities and companies in the UK and abroad. He was one of the founding members of the Institute of Coding and lead its activities at Northumbria University until September 2019. He previously worked as a Reader/Assoc Professor and Director of Enterprise & Engagement for the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at Northumbria University and Faculty Head of Research Operations for the Faculty of Technology at De Montfort University.
Following a short career in education having completed a Computer Science and post-graduate studies in the early 90s, Gareth has built a successful career in the UK. A co-founder of a successful start-up in the early 2000’s (acquired by a FTSE250 organisation), Gareth spent 5 years at a “Big 4” advisory firm. When presented an opportunity to move on, he left this field cause he “never saw the baby grow up”. Aiming to both advise on and deliver IT services, a move into the emerging outsourcing market in Central Eastern Europe beckoned. Here followed the oversight of over 500,000 person days’ worth of effort over the years, in a variety of business domains. This delivery exposed Gareth to a large variety of change both in technology and business strategy, with high degrees of taking innovation to the customers forethoughts. Most recently, Gareth has sought a social purpose in his work and is the CIO at a large Housing Association. A lifelong learner, he continues to study voraciously and has developed a unique ability to translate deeply technical concepts into easily understood, business friendly terms - most recently graduating the Oxford University FinTech programme.
Gavin is a senior technology and business leader who joined LSEG via the acquisition of Refinitiv, where he has in excess of 20 years experience. He currently leads the Technology organisation responsible for the transformation of the groups Identity, Access, Entitlements and Rights Management technology platforms which serve the companies desktop and enterprise platforms, and ensure compliance with the often complex usage rights which apply to the market moving data which LSEG provides to its financial services professional customers. Prior to moving back into Engineering leadership, Gavin held the position of Head of Enterprise, EMEA – responsible for innovation on topics of Cloud and AI/ML whilst setting and leading the vision, strategy and execution for Refinitiv’s market leading Enterprise propositions and commercials in the EMEA region, and for Historical Market Data globally. Gavin studied Computer Science at the University of Wales, Swansea, before moving to take up a software engineering position in the real-time market data industry, working from a barn outside of Cambridge. In the time since, and through numerous acquisitions, Gavin’s winding career path has been shaped by a knack for identifying and highlighting problems or inefficiencies, and subsequently being tasked with their resolution. Away from the office, Gavin enjoys pretty much anything involving the water, photographing the world, and spending time with his young family.
I am accountable for all aspects of Technology, and for the core technology teams responsible for the delivery of services and technology projects. I work closely with colleagues in other areas of the organisation to maintain the overall technology enterprise architecture, for which I am responsible. We operate a federated approach to IT delivery in areas such as supercomputing and observations to ensure that we have the depth and range of skills and experience to deliver a world-class capability in selected areas. I have worked for the Met Office in a number of senior technology roles since 2008 and, prior to that, worked in the business-to-business online retail and distribution industry, focussing on technology driven change. I have significant experience in organisational transformation in a range of businesses. As well as a number of consulting appointments, I worked within the Premier Farnell group of companies for over 10 years. I have run my own small technology company and started my career as an Electronics Engineer in the defence industry
As Group CIO, Aidan is an inspirational digital leader with a track record in successfully identifying and agilely delivering new digital capabilities which create and enhance business value – from ensuring consistent and controlled foundational IT services to transformation at scale (e.g. AI, IoT, blockchain), while ensuring cyber security is continuously enhanced across all activities. Experienced in organisational change and management of large multi-level distributed teams across multiple cultures, he has held senior management and technology positions, including twelve years with BP in a range of roles from Chief Network Architect to CIO for the Middle East, and in the past 8 years he has been privileged to spend time in Iran, Oman, Kuwait and the UAE, and cumulatively over a year in Iraq alone. Born and raised in Cornwall, Aidan enjoys spending as much time as possible outdoors, and is an avid beekeeper.
Adrian is a software developer, architect and technical team lead with over twenty years of professional experience in a wide variety of technologies, most recently specialising in “big data”. He has worked for companies ranging from two person startups to fully fledged businesses with tens of millions of users. He has been a passionate advocate for open source and heads open source efforts at the Expedia Group where he is a principal engineer. His current focus area is working on a highly scalable data platform that supports analytics, AI, machine learning and data engineering.
Currently NED for Recognise Bank as well as a senior Digital Advisor at Bain & co. Louise has help a number complex organisation create their strategy for Global Digital IT transformation. Louise is an outstanding, award winning and dynamic inspirational CIO transformational and business change leader with over 35 years’ experience in some large private and public sector organisations. Also a highly respected in the technology, digital industry as a passionate, energized and transformational leader who achieves amazing results. She is valued at board level for design of complex technology and digital transformational visions, and strategy. The ability to take complex organisations with the need for transformation and align to business objectives. A background in finance and commercial giving the ability to see the wider picture and achieved commercial creativity. Louise is also a role model for females in technology.
Sudip Trivedi
London Borough of Camden
Sudip is Head of Data and Analytics at London Borough of Camden. He is leading on implementation of data strategy and portfolio of projects to support organisational outcomes, he has also led on organisational digital strategy and is passionate about data enabled public services.
Umesh graduated with a degree in Computing Science from Imperial College, London. He has worked for Cap Gemini as an SAP Consultant and with Unilever in the early days of the commercial internet as an eBusiness Manager. Where he pioneered a fully integrated on-line ordering facility directly integrated into SAP. After graduating with a Master’s in Business Administration, he was involved in setting up a Software-as-a-Service Document Management company. Since 2011, he has been in senior technology leadership roles within the Not-for-Profit sector. He was an early adopter of cloud, moving his first organisation into MS Office 365 and a private cloud environment. Now working in the Education sector, he sees AI and Machine Learning as tools that will enable a major shift in the sector. Enabling education programmes to be highly tailored to the needs of the individual.
TOm allen
Tom is the Site Editor for Delta, Computing’s market intelligence service, and regularly writes news and analysis pieces for Computing. He joined Incisive Media in 2017 from the display industry, trading LCDs and quantum dots for cyber-security and machine learning. As well as tech market analysis, Tom’s role consists of interviewing C-level IT leaders, organising events and complaining about improper use of the Oxford comma.
"Lore ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed some witty quote in here to add detail"
Firstname Surname
Stuart sumner
stuart sumner
Stuart Sumner is Editorial Director of Incisive Media's technology-focused titles: Computing and The Inquirer. He oversees all content across print, web, tablet editions, rich media and events - including the IT Leaders' Dining Club and Computing Summits. During Stuart's tenure Computing has transformed from a print-reliant business to a bleeding edge multi-channel brand with an industry-leading events portfolio. Previously he spent 10 years as a programme manager in the IT industry, working for companies such as the BBC, COLT, Nortel Networks and Equant. As a journalist he has also worked for Time Out and IPC Media. He is a regular technology pundit and contributor to the BBC News Channel, as well as a published author.
John Leonard
John Leonard is Group Research Director for the Enterprise Technology Group at Incisive Media. He has designed and conducted research studies and analyses covering many of the aspects of business technology that are driving the way we live and work today.
In association with
Vesta is the world’s first and only transaction guarantee platform using machine learning trained on 25 years of global data across the world’s largest mobile networks and digital merchants. Its models are constantly evolving to adapt to new threats on a global scale. Its proprietary and adaptive graph database draws connections in real-time from 2 trillion data points to approve more than 97% of all transactions processed, leading to a 10-20% average lift in revenue for customers. Vesta assumes 100% of the cost of fraud for any transaction it approves. With its patented artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) technologies, Vesta delivers decisions within less than a second, allowing merchants to instantly approve legitimate transactions without delay. With CNP fraud constantly evolving and leaving merchants with legacy fraud solutions exposed, machine learning has proven to be a highly effective tool when used as part of an orchestrated solution. However, having a multi-layered fraud strategy is key, in both preventing fraud and increasing revenue. In Vesta’s machine learning systems, the company trains both supervised and unsupervised models using a multi-layered approach, which makes Vesta more efficient in preventing fraud than any other solution on the market. The most common is supervised machine learning, with models being trained and tested with billions of legitimate and fraudulent transactions. The model is able to predict in real-time whether a new transaction is likely to be fraudulent. Through unsupervised machine learning, designed to spot anomalies, where the labeled transaction data is not available or is limited - the data self learns and detects anomaly transactions and behaviors. Adaptive machine learning is a method Vesta designed to continuously update machine learning models and monitor the value of its performance with new fraud feedback. Charge ahead @vesta.io
in association with
PagerDuty, Inc. (NYSE:PD) is a leader in digital operations management. In an always-on world, organizations of all sizes trust PagerDuty to help them deliver a perfect digital experience to their customers, every time. Teams use PagerDuty to identify issues and opportunities in real time and bring together the right people to fix problems faster and prevent them in the future. Notable customers include Vodafone, SAP, Netflix, Zoom, Disney, Worldline Ingenico, Gousto, Cox Automotive, and more. To learn more and try PagerDuty for free, visit www.pagerduty.com
the 2021 awards
A product or service that eases the burden of management
Best Cloud or Networking Automation Tool
Best Emerging Technology in AI Award
A new use of artificial intelligence that solves a specific challenge
Best RPA Project
Using simple tools to solve complex problems
Most Innovative AI Solution
A tool, solution or approach that solves a challenge in a new and unexpected way
AI Professional of the Year
An extraordinary individual with exemplary performance
AI/ML Team of the Year
Working together is key for success – there are no siloes here
Best Use of Automation
From data entry to machine learning, automation can solve many challenges
The AI & Machine Learning Awards recognise the most impressive, innovative and progressive organisations, individuals and solutions working with artificial intelligence today.
Explore our 2021 Awards
Click on a category to reveal the winner
Best Use of Predictive/ Prescriptive Analytics
Predict the future for business success
Find the winner
Active Fund Awards
Outstanding Security Automation Award
Are you winning the cyber arms race?
Outstanding Analytics Infrastructure Award
Streamline processes and enable citizen data scientists
Outstanding AI/ML Industry Project Award
A ground-breaking project, pushing the boundaries of AI and machine learning
Most Innovative Use of AI/ML
Experimental uses of AI and ML can reveal unexpected and rewarding results
Most Innovative ML Solution
Machine learning has hundreds of possible uses – only the most impressive will stand out from the pack
Outstanding Data Analytics Solution Award
Unlock the full power of data
group awards
Group awards
passive fund awards
Active fund awards
An outstanding and innovative AI project
Best Use of AI
Awarded to an ingenious new company developing or utilising AI solutions
Best AI Startup
AI/Automation Technology Provider of the Year
For a company with a ground-breaking product or service
Best Marketing Automation Project
Using AI to expand reach
Business Transformation of the Year
Changing the face of business using AI
Special Award: Pandemic Performance
Finding success in the face of adversity
Best Use of Conversational AI
A brand new way to use AI
Who made the shortlist?
The award
Back to categories
About this category
Managing enterprise workloads, whether in the cloud or on a network, is a time-consuming manual process. Offloading the work of provisioning virtual machines, load balancing and management can dramatically raise efficiency, security and availability. This award goes to the entrant with an innovative and fully featured automation solution that is designed to ease the burden of cloud or network management.
Congratulations!
CLICK TO REVEAl
Who's the winner?
DCConnect Global Limited - Instant On-demand Network & Cloud connections with software EBTIC & BT - EBTIC SPL Tool
Why the winner was chosen?
"Has the opportunity to hugely reduce code complexity, improving security and reducing the cost of cloud migration."
AI is always evolving as researchers develop new technologies that can change the world - whether wholesale or focusing on specific parts. Here we looked for the best new solution, paying particular attention to the challenge it aimed to overcome, its feasibility and how it addressed that challenge.
Clarifai - Clarifai Scribe: AI-Automated Data Labeling Image Analyzer Runecast Solutions - RAIKA smartKYC - smartKYC ESG Screening SQream - SQream Data Analytics Acceleration Platform Synthesized
Mobile devices and apps play a major role in modern business, especially in 2020. Whether is hardware or software, the winning product should showcase an innovative use of technology to deliver provable business benefits.
"A great use of AI to resolve a problem that affects all sectors and all organisations."
Robotic process automation is a slightly simpler start on the automation journey, although it can still be used to great effect in highly advanced implementations: for everything from form-filling to natural language processing and machine learning. The winning project must be an outstanding use of RPA, where it has been implemented swiftly and solved a significant challenge.
Agilisys - Aberdeen City Council Child Plan RPA Solution Ceox Services Ltd - Automating Correspondence Management at the DHSC Staffordshire University - Staffordshire University Service Automation UiPath - Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin
with highly commended
“A straightforward efficiency gain to help in a sector that is notoriously bad at tech projects.”
Speech-based AI offers a step-change in how we utilise enterprise IT: from data entry to booking meetings, answering questions, and manipulating data. This award is for a firm that can discuss a successful implementation of conversational AI, highlighting the benefits it has brought to the business.
DCConnect Global - AI Pricing Assistant Mobile App ServisBOT Tata Consultancy Services - TCS REXA
"ServisBot clearly sets out the challenges it means to address and tells a compelling story about how it solves them."
Predictive and prescriptive analytics technologies can answer important questions for every type of organisation. Using data to predict what will happen, and understanding how to act on that information, helps to prepare for future scenarios of all types - particularly useful in times of major change. Genuine use cases are critical to success, showcasing the benefits these tools have brought, with details around the RoI and behavioural changes they have driven.
Fundraise Up NICE - NICE Enlighten AI NTTDATA - AI-driven optimisation engine OpsRamp - Predictive Analytics in IT Monitoring White Label Loyalty - AI module
"NICE has demonstrated clear success in matching sentiment to customer satisfaction, with demonstrable results."
This award will go to the impressive AI solution that brings something genuinely new to its users. It could be the result of a major breakthrough or advance in technology, or simply a new way of approaching an old problem. This award is judged on a variety of factors, including details of the innovation itself, how it was created and how it differs from its rivals.
British Telecom – SIA EBTIC & BT - EBTIC SPL Tool Humley - Deployment of Conversational AI for HR InvestCloud Private Banking - AI Next Best Action Ivanti - Ivanti Neurons Luminance MSC Software Corporation NICE - Enlighten AI smartKYC
"This is real innovation in an area ever more important, as end-points grow and are more widely distributed and therefore more challenging to manage."
This award is for a machine learning solution that brings something genuinely new to its users. It could be the result of a major breakthrough or advance in technology, or simply a new way of approaching an old problem. This award is judged on a variety of factors, including details of the innovation itself, how it was created and how it differs from its rivals.
Alva - ESG Intelligence ContrAI Limited - Clause Game Fundraise Up Tessian
"This is a very sophisticated ML-based sentiment-analysis engine using a wide range of data sources, which allows large organisations to identify issues early and realise opportunity."
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are one of the most significant developments of the century. Although more than just a phase or a trend, widescale adoption is still in the early stages and often confined to proof-of-concepts. That makes these implementations ripe for experimentation and innovation.
Clarifai Cortical.io - Social media to monitor off-label drug use EBTIC & BT - EBTIC SPL Tool GaiaLens IFS - IFS AI-driven scheduling and optimisation solution Inawisdom - AI and Machine Learning helping with rising levels of consumer debt Logically - Live fact-checking the 2020 US Presidential & Vice-Presidential Debates LogicMonitor smartKYC - False Hit Filtering Vesta - Multi-Layer Machine Learning Fraud Strategy
"A new and innovative use of AI. Fact-checking in a complex world is key to enabling us to make good choices."
Uses for AI and ML range from automating data entry to teaching a car to drive itself. We are seeking a project that has accomplished something radically different, which a manual approach would struggle or be unable to accomplish.
British Telecom Nsugbe Research Labs - A cybernetic framework towards preterm prediction and control Speechmatics - Hydra Project The Climate Corporation
"This is a perfect example of the use of AI and machine learning to improve food security and demonstrate the benefits of bringing technology and established farming practices together."
Effective infrastructure can make data, and its insights, more accessible to users by embedding analytics in their operational processes. This award is for the analytics infrastructure platform or solution that demonstrates the best features, adoption and differentiation from its competition.
Graphcore - Graphcore PopVision tools Guavus (a Thales company) - Guavus-IQ
"An excellent example of the efficiency gains to be made from technology integrations."
Data is the lifeblood of every organisation, but it's worthless without the ability to unlock its value. This award is for the data analytics solution that demonstrates superior capabilities and features, as well as evidence of strong market performance.
Alva - Stakeholder Intelligence Databricks - SQL Analytics FeedStock - Synapse Micro Focus - Vertica Analytics Platform NICE Nexidia Quantexa - Contextual Decision Intelligence Space Intelligence - SLAM-MAP Starburst Data - Starburst Enterprise Synthesized
"A powerful, slick solution for doing analytics; the overall product is flexible and feature-rich."
Cyber security is essential to modern businesses, but staying ahead of attackers is a constant struggle. Automating some or all of that security to watch for attacks and respond in real time removes a huge burden from overworked staff, but is full autonomy even possible? This award is for a solution that goes further than any other towards increasing security while lowering the burden on IT staff.
Darktrace - Antigena Kaseya – Graphus Netacea Securiti - Sensitive Data Intelligence SentinelOne - Singularity Silverfort - AI-driven risk and adaptive authentication platform
"Darktrace appears to be able to identify and prevent a huge range of different attacks."
Demand for AI professionals has skyrocketed, in line with the explosion of AI/ML adoption across many organisations. This award goes to the individual who can demonstrate the most impressive performance across the last 12 months; this could be due to a specific project or collection of projects; a product or several products; or some other form of AI-related activity. The winner is a hard-working and innovative individual, with a bright future in the AI space.
Dimitrios Gontzes - Inawisdom Ejay Nsugbe - Nsugbe Research Labs Larissa Suzuki – Google
Ejay Nsugbe Nsugbe Research Labs
"Very impressed with the dual focus on both directly improving peoples’ lives and 'building a bench' for the specialism through outreach work."
No project can succeed without the effort and application of talented individuals, working together. This award focuses on the team and its output, but also considers the effort of the owning organisation to enable collaboration, break down siloes and support innovation. The project is new and different, with strong evidence of success by the team.
Projecting Success Ltd Luminance Staffordshire University QuantumBlack labs
"A high-performance team delivering real benefits by focusing on a transformational vision."
Automation can range from simple data entry to complex natural language processing and security information event management. This award is for an implementation where automation has been deployed swiftly and safely to solve a significant challenge - with specific detail paid to what that challenge was, why automation was chosen to solve it and what the outcomes have been.
Appian - Deloitte Robotics Centre of Excellence Conga - Homeless Link EBTIC & BT - EBTIC SPL Tool Intoware and Petrofac - WorkfloPlus Oil & Gas NICE - NEVA (NICE Employee Virtual Attendant) smartKYC - Robo Onboarding UiPath - UiPath Platform
"A strong story, well told."
EXL - EXL PayMentor Fundraise Up Netacea Papercup - Automated Dubbing Platform smartKYC - Continuous Media Monitoring
AI is still in its infancy, and many companies claim to be doing AI when all they really have is a fancy algorithm. A truly intelligent system is one that can learn on its own, growing more adapt over time and making a practical difference to peoples' lives.
"Excellent use of AI to enable increased accessibility of video content. It is relevant for all sectors, especially teaching and learning, to save time and costs."
Buildots Edgify Fundraise Up Heliocor Ltd. Kanverse.ai Logically Luminance Papercup Sensi SmartFox Technologies
The developing role of AI, and its impact on customers, has become a focus for organisations of all kinds. The Best AI Startup Award is presented to a company, founded within the last five years, that has utilised the opportunities AI and ML are bringing to organisations of all kinds. The company is either developing AI/ML solutions to sell itself, or has significant reliance on AI/ML technology to deliver its services or solutions. The winner must be using AI in a truly transformational way.
Congratulations
"SmartFox has a great solution to a problem that many organisations have been unable to solve."
ContactEngine Darktrace HireHand Humley Kaseya Luminance PagerDuty smartKYC UiPath
AI and automation help organisations to free staff up from repetitive tasks and unlock their creativity. This award is for the firm with a truly impressive product or service; this could be due to its functionality, uniqueness, market share, performance or some combination of these traits.
"This is a worthy challenger to the big low code/no-code platform operators, and good for the automation industry."
AT Still University, College of Graduate Health Studies - Reducing cost with Akero automation DialogTech - DialogTech's Vaccine KPI
Automation is the newest tool marketers are using to raise efficiencies. Much like other areas of business, marketing automation frees the team up to focus on adding value to their other work, as well as enabling seamless and simplified omnichannel marketing.
"A fantastic programme delivering genuine cost savings and demonstrating real efficiency."
Halfspace.io - A ferry company taking AI on board Tata Consultancy Services - Intelligent automation leveraging Ignio
Digital transformation is the first step; business transformation using AI, automation and machine learning is next. This award is for an organisation that has implemented these technologies to improve processes and raise efficiencies.
"The AI/ML-based solution and clear success metrics allowed for further focus and refinement. Congratulations to the team."
Conga - Homeless Link DialogTech - DialogTech's Vaccine KPI HMRC - The Customer Insight Platform NatWest Group - Cora - Customer-facing Digital AI Assistant Tata Consultancy Services - IUX for Workplace Resilience TOMI WORLD - TOMI Anti-Covid-19 Prevention Technologies
This one-time award is presented to the team or company that has risen to the challenge of COVID-19, adopting new ways of working using AI and automation to survive and thrive.
"One of the great examples of public sector use cases for AI during the pandemic."
