Kickstart AI

🚀 We are Launching the National AI Challenge! 🚀 Kickstart AI, in collaboration with the Nederlandse AI Coalitie | NL AIC, is excited to announce the launch of the National AI Challenge starting today. This initiative gives businesses and societal organizations the opportunity to address specific challenges within their operations using AI technology. The organization with the winning business case will be offered the chance to work with a dedicated team of AI experts and software engineers from Kickstart AI to develop a custom AI solution tailored to their needs. Interested in participating? Apply now through the link below. 🔗https://lnkd.in/e35eZQHe #NationaleAIChallenge #KickstartAI #NLAIC

Exciting developments in AI: Japan’s Sakana AI is making waves! 🌊 Founded by former Google AI engineers, including Llion Jones (co-author of “Attention Is All You Need”), Sakana AI is taking a unique approach to artificial intelligence. Why we as Kickstart AI think the AI Community should take notice: 1. Nature-inspired AI: Sakana draws inspiration from collective intelligence in nature, like schools of fish and beehives, to design more flexible and reactive AI models 2. Beyond traditional LLMs: The startup aims to develop AI that can generate text, images, code, and multimedia content using principles of evolutionary computing 3. Substantial funding: Sakana recently raised $30M in seed funding, backed by prominent VCs and tech giants 4. AI for scientific discovery: Their recent paper explores using AI agents for conducting scientific experiments and writing research papers. It has not yet reached the human level (prone to errors and hallucinations) but it is an interesting glimpse into a possible future. What are your thoughts on this nature-inspired direction for AI? Let us know in the comments. Full article can be viewed here: https://lnkd.in/gEXWkMCY #ArtificialIntelligence #DataScience #Innovation #AIResearch

If your company hasn't signed up for the National AI Challenge yet, then this is your chance to do it now! Janneke Niessen, co-founder of CapitalT, and one of the jury members of the Challenge explains in this article why companies should participate and how they can sign up. Janneke Niessen: ''The National AI Challenge aims to accelerate AI development and adoption in the Netherlands, as we're currently lagging behind in this area. Despite our strong position in AI research and innovation, the broader business community is not fully capitalizing on the opportunities this technology offers. With the AI Challenge we intend to bridge this gap and unleash the potential of AI across various sectors.'' Interested in the full article (in Dutch)? Click here: https://lnkd.in/eqwqJ6uf #AI #NationaleAIChallenge 

Curious about how companies like Albert Heijn, bol, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Nederlandse Spoorwegen are harnessing the power of AI and you haven’t watched our AI Cybersessions yet? Then take the opportunity this summer to watch our 6-episode series featuring industry leaders leveraging AI to improve their operations! Watch the series here: https://lnkd.in/diGqwySn Want to share your thoughts? Please do so in the comments!

Excited to see that the Netherlands ranked first in the Global Index on Responsible AI! This annual research evaluates the state of responsible AI in 138 countries, assessing areas such as ethical practices, safety, and worker protection. Why this matters: ✔ Global leadership: This ranking highlights the Netherlands’ commitment to ethical and inclusive AI practices. ✔ International collaboration: The research emphasizes the importance of global partnerships and shared knowledge in advancing responsible AI. ✔ Safety & security: Ensuring the safety and reliability of AI systems is crucial as we rely more on AI. ✔ Worker protection: The report points out the need for better protection for workers in AI-driven economies, an area where the Netherlands is leading. ✔ Education & awareness: Dutch universities, civil society organizations, and various coalitions are actively promoting AI education and responsible use. As Kickstart AI it's fantastic to see that we're performing so well in this area and it shows that the Netherlands can indeed take a leading role in AI. As an organization that wants to accelerate the adoption of AI in the Netherlands, we remain committed to driving the large-scale implementation and utilization of AI 🚀 #AI #ResponsibleAI #Netherlands

Join us on September 10, for an evening of insights, networking, and cutting-edge technology at the AI Innovation Center in Eindhoven. This event is organized by Kickstart AI in partnership with PyData Eindhoven. 🎤 Speakers and Topics: 1. Merel Theisen - Principal Software Engineer at QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey. Topic: Embedding Software Engineering Best Practices into Machine Learning Projects with Kedro Explore how modularity, testability, and reproducibility can elevate your ML projects. Learn how the Kedro framework integrates these principles, making complex projects more manageable and scalable. 2. Emilio Oldenziel - Machine Learning Engineer at Eraneos. Topic: Optimizing Rail Traffic Control using a Digital Twin and Reinforcement Learning Dive into a customer case where RL and Digital Twin technology reduced delays by over 58,000 minutes annually in a high-frequency railway network. 🤝 Networking and Collaboration: Connect with fellow AI experts, share your experiences, and learn from top professionals in the field. Enjoy networking drinks and bites after the talks, with our speakers available for further discussions. Event Details:  📅 Date: September 10  🕕 Time: 18:00 - 21:00  📍 Location: AI Innovation Center - High Tech Campus Eindhoven Don’t miss this opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of AI and machine learning. We look forward to seeing you there! 🚀 Sign-up here: https://lnkd.in/eGstmiqr #AI #MachineLearning #TechMeetup #Innovation #Networking #EindhovenEvents #HighTechCampus

🚀 Project Update 🚀 We’re excited to share an update on our work with Ampère, a start up founded by bol. Earlier this year we came together with the Ampère team to define a use case: by enriching package data, such as weight and dimension, we wanted to increase routing efficiency. In the last two weeks, Data Scientists, ML Engineers, Software Engineers from Kickstart AI, bol, and Ampère, have worked intensively together to achieve this goal, and with success! Together, we developed a data-driven solution that operates in real -time for each incoming parcel request, ensuring that the most up to date and accurate data is being used. By providing Ampère with this critical information, we've enabled more efficient route planning, which is projected to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in the coming years. As a bonus we also gained valuable insights for other parts of the Ampère business such as differences in data quality among DCs and insights in bottlenecks in their process. We will now move into implementation phase to ensure this solution becomes part of Ampère’s daily operations.Stay tuned for more updates! #KickstartAI #Innovation #DataDriven #Sustainability

Join us this Tuesday at the Rainbow Tech & AI Summit organized by Artefact. Our own Natasha Govender-Ropert, PhD, Head of Modelling at ING Nederland and Expert in Residence at Kickstart AI, will be a panelist together. She’ll discuss trust and bias elimination in AI with Sid Mohan, Director of Data Science & GenAI at Artefact. Save your free seat here: https://lnkd.in/eKBV_DRx #Inclusion #Diversity #AIadoption #RainbowTechAISummit

Hi AI Community in the Netherlands! Our very own Cascha V. recently published a blog post on our website about Analyzing the News with AI! Cascha dives into our recent workshop, “News Analysis for Poverty Insights in NL,” where we explored how AI can help us make sense of news data and understand issues like poverty. We tackled a huge dataset of 250,000 articles from NOS, using tools like TF-IDF and BERTopic to find patterns and themes in the news.  Why you should read it: - Get how news impacts us - Learn cool AI techniques - See real-world application examples Curious? Read more here: https://lnkd.in/e8FZYED9 #KickstartAI #NewsAnalysis #PovertyInsights

Last Thursday, we had an amazing time at our RAG workshop in Rotterdam at Microlab | Offices, Maker Space, Event Venue & Coworking! A huge thank you to everyone who came out and made it such a fantastic day. We learned so much together, from new strategies to practical tips given by Omendra Manhar, and it was great to see everyone so engaged and enthusiastic. One of the highlights was experimenting with different queries and analysing the RAG system response’s accuracy. The discussions were insightful, and we all walked away with some valuable takeaways. Special thanks to our awesome Omendra Manhar, Cascha V., and Kim Veltman for sharing their expertise and to all of you for your participation. It was a great chance to connect with each other and share our experiences. Here are a few pics from the day and looking forward to seeing you all at the next one! #RAGWorkshop #Rotterdam #Networking