Laura Lafave, PhD

The case for GB Cloud The AI revolution will need massive computing capacity to enable it. In this paper Demos ‘ Elizabeth Seger with UKDayOne calls for the next government to invest in sovereign compute - GB Cloud - to develop cost effect and resilient compute. GB Cloud should be a public interest company offering discounted access to the NHS, public services and researchers and start-ups and could have parliamentary oversight and public consultation to ensure it is a trusted resource for the nation. The next will have to pick some targets to stimulate growth. This is a good bet. https://lnkd.in/eg28dipv

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In our latest issue of The Data Scientist Magazine, Gareth Hagger-Johnson from Nottingham Building Society delves into the critical topic of Data Quality in Relation to Algorithmic Bias. With over 15 years of experience in data analysis and leadership roles across various sectors, Gareth sheds light on the pervasive issue of algorithmic bias and its impact on minority groups in key areas such as housing, banking, health, and education. As Gareth explains, algorithmic bias leads to unfair decisions affecting real people based on their demographic characteristics. This bias can result in discriminatory outcomes, such as the disproportionate denial of loans to ethnic minorities with equivalent credit scores, highlighting the urgent need to address and mitigate bias in automated decision-making systems. The article underscores the importance of understanding how bias within algorithms can stem from factors related to data coding, collection, selection, and utilization during the training process. By recognizing these challenges and working towards equitable decision-making, we can strive to create fairer and more inclusive outcomes across various domains. #TheDataScientistMagazine #DataScience #AlgorithmicBias #DataQuality #Inclusivity #DecisionMaking

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As the Chief Technology Officer at a Health startup using AI, I see the introduction of the "Artificial Intelligence (Regulation) Bill" as a critical juncture for the technology sector. This proposed legislation offers a chance to establish a regulatory framework that not only protects the public and maintains ethical standards but also encourages innovation. The creation of an AI Authority could serve as a centralised body to ensure consistency and coherence across various sectors, effectively addressing the current regulatory fragmentation. Such regulation is crucial to balance rapid technological advancements with the need for transparency and accountability, ultimately fostering a more trustworthy AI ecosystem. This bill could set a precedent for global AI governance, positioning the UK as a leader in this vital area. Lord Holmes #aibill #ArtificialIntelligence #startups #ai #ukai #aijobs

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Great session planned tomorrow night!! Join us for an insightful evening at our Monthly AI Dinner, where Kim Faura former executive at giffgaff and Checkatrade,  and Lukasz Zelezny of SEO.London will discuss the transformative impact of AI on SEO. Kim will explore AI's evolving role in SEO, how businesses are leveraging AI tools for keyword research, content creation, and performance analysis, and strategies for integrating AI into SEO workflows to drive growth.  Lukasz will show how to use AI to enhance SEO strategies by leveraging AI-driven content translation and precise keyword taxonomization. He will aslo present how to do in-depth geo-location research to ensure content resonates globally while targeting local audiences effectively. These are approaches to boosts search rankings and drives meaningful engagement.

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The discussion on Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace has been and still is a hot topic. There are great initiatives to enable this to happen, some successful and some not so successful. Did you know that in the UK, Employment prospects among blind and partially-sighted people have not changed in a generation, with only one in four in paid employment – Study by Birmingham University in 2022. In July 2021, Lord Blunkett called on UK businesses to see the skills of blind and partially sighted people. In this same report from Vision foundation Sight loss employment statistics: Only 27% of working age blind or partially sighted people are in work, compared to 51% of disabled people and 75% of the general population Only 40% of employers are confident their recruitment processes are accessible to blind or partially sighted people 90% of employers state that it would be “difficult” or “impossible” to employ a visually impaired person. This is a response to the above “It doesn’t have to be like this,” explains Vision Foundation chief executive Olivia Curno. “Blind and partially sighted people do the vast majority of the jobs that sighted people do. They might do them a little differently, using specialist technology or admin support – but they do them successfully. The technology and the processes exist – including the Access to Work programme operated under the Department for Work and Pensions; it’s attitudes that need to change.” Having set the scene, we know the next generation is our future and there is a skills shortage in the STEM industry. This is another STEM Positive Disruptor - MIA conversation with special guests Alex Man, Assistive Technology Officer and Carla Rose-Hardman, Services Director for the Royal Society for Blind Children, RSBC. Their vision is for every blind child and parent to have the skills and confidence to live their lives without limits. @RSBCcharity You have to listen to the full conversation to hear their response but these are some of things, I took away from this very informative conversation. 1. The government in the UK is not making employers aware of the Access to Work programme (where upto £60K is available) for support. 2. Employers are not aware what technology is available, some are free or how to create an inclusive environment. 3. Need for change of attitude and also awareness on both sides employers and blind/partially blind people 4. Role models need to go into schools to talk about their career 5. Remote working should be an option This platform is to Educate, Raise awareness, Demystify and Change Perception about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and make it more accessible to the public. Show the diverse roles, the benefits and impact of STEM in our world. Please subscribe and support us  @STEM.Positive.Disruptor  , Like, Comment and Share with your networks Thanks again to everyone RSBC (Royal Society for Blind Children) #Inclusion, #Diversity, #Disability

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12% more breast cancers detected with potential workload savings of 30% in the UK’s first prospective evaluation of breast screening AI. More than two million women are screened for breast cancer each year in the UK, but breast cancer is extremely hard to detect. About 20% of women with breast cancer have tumours that are missed by mammogram screening, which is why many countries mandate that two radiologists should read every mammogram. An artificial intelligence (AI) breast screening solution called Mia helped doctors find an additional 12% more cancers than in routine practice, as announced today by Kheiron Medical, NHS Grampian, the in University of Aberdeen and Microsoft . This augmented AI workflow also showed a decrease in women recalled unnecessarily for further assessment and modelled a workload reduction of up to 30%. To learn more read the customer story: https://lnkd.in/gwX9YKyg #Microsoft #Healthcare #AI

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If you can find a way to push through the Valley of the Shadow of Death….there’s always success on the other side. But many give up before they hit their breakthrough!! I hear many entrepreneurs and investors say that “You need to know when to give up.” I say never give up!!!!!!!!! But you also need to understand how to LEARN as quickly as possible so that you can evolve (even sometimes pivot) before you run out of MONEY!!!! It’s all about learning and putting those learnings into practice as fast as possible. If startups had an infinite amount of runway every company would be successful because you could take as much time as you need to figure things out. Since time is limited for all startups, the race you have to win is the race against time. And time is directly correlated to runway. The best companies in the world 🌎 are the ones that LEARN faster than anyone (which is a direct corollary to failing fast) and put those learnings to Practice relentlessly. Thanks to AFROTECH for the support!!!

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“TechMarketView Chief Analyst, Georgina O'Toole, said: ‘Uncertainty is a growth suppressant. Across Whitehall, with the previous expectation of an autumn election, we had already witnessed changing behaviours. Departments had sought to spend their budget ahead of a pre-election hiatus, while in parallel, delaying any major decisions that might be reversed under a new government. Meanwhile, in the private sector, we have witnessed economic uncertainty translate into caution and a stifled—and more challenging—UK tech market. Now, the date of the General Election is a certainty. But who will be in power is not. In Whitehall, the 'pre-election period' will arrive sooner than expected. It will slow the UK public sector tech market down over that period and post-election it will take time for any new policies to be implemented and new procurement activity to pick up. Suppliers to the public sector are in for a tough ride the next few months. We are unlikely to see much of a pickup until Q4. Meanwhile, in the commercial sector…” Read more, including commentary from Public Sector Research Director Dale Peters at TechMarketView…

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Microsoft’s UK business reported a profit surge last year after the group boosted its revenues to £8.4bn, up from £6.3bn the year prior. The UK entity of the US tech giant cited extra demand for its cloud services as driving the 33% increase in turnover, financial filings show. For the year ended 30 June 2023, Microsoft reported pre-tax profits of £652m, up from £229m in 2022. A slight increase in administrative expenses and cost of sales brought the group’s total profit for the year to £508.3m after tax, a major increase from the loss of £11.6m in 2022. The Companies House documents also revealed that Microsoft UK increased its headcount by almost 600 staff last year. Recently, Microsoft has gone all in on artificial intelligence, with a significant focus on leveraging the UK market to grow its AI business. This month, Microsoft announced its new AI hub in London, where it will work on “state-of-the-art” large language model tools. Last November, the group pledged to invest £2.5bn in the UK’s AI infrastructure, focusing on data centres and GPUs. Microsoft’s recently formed AI-specific entity is currently run by Mustafa Suleyman, who co-founded one of the UK’s biggest AI successes, DeepMind, which was acquired by Google 10 years ago. https://lnkd.in/eWsUAGvm

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So proud to see one of my Guides in this video talking about the importance of diversity in #computing and how we need to all work together to create a better world! 🥰 #inspiregirls #girlsinSTEM #girlsincomputing #empowergirls

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Framework, Hardware, but our 3rd blog in the Data Intellect ARK series is my favourite, SDLC. I promise its not author favouritism, although Andrew is awesome, its because I love the drive towards 1 and 0 click deployments and lets be honest in "kdb+ land" the landscape varies substantially. So check out the latest blog instalment below: https://lnkd.in/d7BNA55s If your CI/CD is more MI/MD, you want us to kick the tyres, or you want our thoughts on the landscape please give us a shout. #sdlc #dataintellect #architecturereview #kdb+ #noclickdeploy

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That pesky ECDSA signature refuses to go away, and we are struggling with it in a distributed world of trust. Luckily EdDSA is much more scalable, and now used in many distributed signature applications (and where we can split the private key up into secret shares and distribute them over several nodes). But we have a problem ... elliptic curve methods are going to be cracked by quantum computers. So can we take our PQC signature methods and scale them to distributed signatures? Well, no, as Dilithium doesn't support it. But Raccoon can, and also has better side channel resistance (and with a similar performance and key size to Dilithium. So, meet Raccoon: https://lnkd.in/d2QMHSM9

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U.K. needs it own AI regulation to ensure responsible use of AI that is based on principles of fairness, transparency, safety, accountability, good governance, privacy, credibility and democracy. Lord Holmes is leading the UK’s AI Regulation Bill which is critical to the success of responsible AI innovation, utilisation and implementation in the U.K. for future generations, for the greater public good and to enable the U.K. to achieve its long-term ambition of becoming a technology super power. I wish him all the very best in his efforts! #AI #ArtificalIntelligence #GenAI #ResponsibleAI #TrustworthyAI #EthicalAI #SafeAI #SecureAI #DemocraticAI #AccountableAI #AIRegulation #AIBill #OurAIFutures #ResponsibleInnovation #Privacy #DataPrivacy UK House of Lords Department for Science, Innovation and Technology The Alan Turing Institute AI Safety Institute Innovate UK UK Research and Innovation AI Safety Hub Ada Lovelace Institute Information Commissioner's Office Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) Competition and Markets Authority Ofcom, UK independent communications regulator Ofcom Innovate UK Digital Catapult London & Partners IAPP - International Association of Privacy Professionals PrivSec Data Protection World Forum AI Time Journal AI Summit AI SUMMIT SEOUL London Tech Week Fintech Week London Sifted The AI Journal AI Times The Fintech Times Compliance Week eWeek UK Responsible Technology Adoption Unit 10 Downing Street Level39 Entrepreneurs Collective Foundervine IBM IBM watsonx TD SYNNEX NexaQuanta

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Have you seen this?.... https://lnkd.in/e-z2N2JM A report showing that young children might be misguided when it comes to their understanding of how 'intelligent' AI is as the responses become more human and pseudo emotive. So what did ChatGPT think of the whole situation.. I was lucky enough to be able to catch 10 minutes with probably the busiest AI on the planet to interview it and get it's opinion... ChatGPT told me... "As an AI language model, I don't have personal opinions or viewpoints. However, I can provide insights based on existing knowledge." "The reports indicating that youngsters may overestimate and misunderstand the intelligence of household AI assistants are not entirely surprising. Children often interact with technology in ways that may differ from adults, and their understanding of AI may be influenced by factors such as media portrayals and limited exposure to formal education on the topic." "The viewpoint that children should be taught AI literacy in schools and that technology designers should ensure their AI products don't mislead children into thinking they are human-like is a valid and important perspective. Education plays a crucial role in helping individuals develop critical thinking skills and a nuanced understanding of technology. By teaching AI literacy in schools, children can learn about the capabilities and limitations of AI, how it works, and its societal implications." Have your say, do we need to give children a better education on AI in schools? #AI #Technology #FutureThinking #Education

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🧠💡Next Friday we will be running a webinar with the University of Cambridge and FourthRev on Large Language Models (LLMs). https://lnkd.in/eahNR6Jg 📅 Anyone can join, so join us on Friday, 31 May at 12pm (BST) for "Harnessing the Power of Large Language Models: Building and Deploying LLM Applications in Production"! In this insightful online session, you'll: ✅ Discover the transformative potential of LLMs across industries ✅ Learn best practices for building and deploying LLM applications ✅ Understand Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and its role in enhancing LLM performance ✅ Explore real-world applications of LLMs in market research, healthcare, finance, and more ✅ Gain insights into ethical considerations and responsible deployment strategies Whether you're a data science enthusiast or a professional looking to expand your skill set, this masterclass will equip you with valuable knowledge and practical insights to navigate the exciting world of Large Language Models. 🔗 Register now to secure your spot: https://lnkd.in/eahNR6Jg #LargeLanguageModels #AI #DataScience #MachineLearning #FutureOfAI #UniversityOfCambridge #FourthRev

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