IBM ISTC representative: Armenia has potential for IT artificial intellect investments

Artificial intelligence seemed to belong in the science fiction years ago, however, it is reality today.

IBM Watson is a supercomputer endowed with artificial intelligence and created by IBM Corporation.

Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF) and IBM International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) initiated rapid classes for local specialists on February 8-11 in Yerevan to make IBM Watson technology available in Armenia.

Watson Day Yerevan 2016 will be held on February 11, and USA Watson expert Armen Pischdotchian will present IBM Watson and IBM BlueMix programs during the event.

Itel.am spoke with Development Manager for IBM Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center in Armenia Areg Gevorgyan about Armenian perspectives of investment in Watson artificial intelligence program.

- What are the advantages of Watson “supercomputer” and how can it be used?

- “Supercomputer” has come out of research state and entered the market around 2 and half years ago.

The professors who participated in Yerevan classes will be granted access to IBM Watson. They will get a test name and a password, and connect to Watson. They give him certain data that Watson tries to understand and then process, and it is ready to answer the user’s questions.

Watson uses natural language. The program is asked a question in English, for which it searches for and gives an answer. This is a new generation computer that gives answers based on probability.

Types of questions depend on the data you provided to the program. Unlike Google, for example, Watson analyzes and understands the question and its content, logically forms answer options, examines them, excludes what is necessary, and gives answers together with the percent of probability.



Watson’s main advantage is its ability to work with unstructured data.

The program is used in various spheres, e.g. in public health, it’s a good advisor for doctors.

Watson is a very expensive product due to its commercial nature, however, IBM provides opportunities of free use, which are exactly that we try to bring to Armenia.
 
- Armenia is noted to become the first country in the region to create IBM Watson ecosystem. How will artificial intelligence find use in university curriculums?

- IBM Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center in Armenia has been investing in renewal of education projects and curriculum in higher education institutes within IBM Academic Initiative. Around 50 professors from different Armenian universities are members of IBM Academic Initiative at present. In this period, over 10 educational projects were renewed and more than 80 professor retrained, and as a result we have over 600 students participating in the classes.

What are we trying to achieve with Watson in Armenia? We invited a specialist from USA (Armen Pischdotchian) to hold intensive classes for professors here. The classes included professors from different Armenian universities and IT experts, who specialize in large data processing, cognitive technologies, and data management. The experts will be IBM Watson program’s knowledge messengers, passing their professional skills to students and interested specialists.

We predict that the participants will be given access to Watson for education in a month, which will make this innovative technology available in Armenian universities.

- The second direction is acceleration of artificial intelligence related startups. When will it be launched and who is targeted?

- IBM Watson department has several directions, including support for startups and promotion to use Watson in those.

IBM has annual USD 100 million budget for startup investments. Startups receive free business and technical counseling from IBM experts if they become members of Watson ecosystem. They can use the provided funds to develop and spread the product.

Startups can use Watson in different ways, e.g. by BlueMix platform. It is a web development platform that speeds up and easies web application processing. It has various Watson APIs, which can be easily integrated in applications, giving them artificial intelligence.

Thus, we create all opportunities for startups that want to endow their application with artificial intelligence and do it with Watson’s help.

The first startup acceleration project will be the so-called pre-acceleration with the submission stage launch in March.

Pre-acceleration is necessary as we don’t believe there are many startups working with artificial intelligence in Armenia, so we should pave the way first.

We will announce a competition of business ideas for artificial intelligence, and work with the best for 2-3 months. We’ll support them in areas beginning with idea improvement and up to market research and business model arrangement. We’ll try to include at least one technical specialist in each team. We should promote the idea that you can work with artificial intelligence products in Armenia, and that it’s easy to offer such solutions and find financing.

We also want to help with the process of turning idea into product. Acceleration program participants will pioneer implementation of this idea, and IBM will support the best.

Thus, our two forthcoming goals are to develop specialists in Armenia who will prepare students, passing them artificial intelligence knowledge, and for students in their turn to put it to practice by different projects.

Narine Daneghyan talked to Areg Gevorgyan