AI2’s startup incubator: progress and directions

AI2’s startup incubator: progress and directions

he Allen Institute for AI (AI2) is a Seattle-based research institute founded by Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen. Led by renown AI researcher Oren Etzioni, AI2 has about 100 research scientists, software engineers, and other staffs that are dedicated to long-term research to advance AI, particularly in natural language processing, commonsense knowledge representation and reasoning, computer vision, and machine learning. Within AI2, the startup incubator seeks to commercialize AI by investing in and advising early-stage AI-focused startups, as well as incubating and spinning out technologies and ideas from within the institute. In this talk I will give an overview of the incubator’s progress and the road ahead.

Dr. Ha Vu – Allen Institute for AI (USA)

Vu Ha (Hà Anh Vũ) is a technologist with 20 years of experience building products at some of the largest companies in the world. Most notably, Vu led applied research and engineering teams at Microsoft’s AdCenter Labs and Bing. He co-founded SemanticScholar.org and led its development through its first public launch. Vu is currently a technical director at the Allen Institute for AI’s startup incubator, advising startups on real-world AI and mentoring technical folks who wish to start an AI company, as part of the incubator’s CTO residency program.