Hi, everyone. M12, Microsoft’s venture fund set out a mission to uncover the most innovate startups harassing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform businesses and solve real-world challenges. Together with Madonna Venture Group, Norton and Vertex Ventures, we put a combined $3.5 millions in investment funding on the line to kick off Innovate.AI, a global startup competition would drive progress in AI and further Microsoft’s commitment to making AI accessible for all. Not only did Microsoft receive hundreds of submissions, the companies were all innovate, impactful and inspiring. Microsoft has worked to advance transformative power of AI, believing in its ability to accelerate human ingenuity and solve some of society’s most pressing challenges.
The hundreds of startups applied to Innovate.AI make it clear that the next generation of innovators is realizing this vision in ways anyone never could have imagined. In healthcare, startups are utilizing AI to create personal and mental health assistants and conducting drug research and diagnosis. In retail, computer vision is used to automatically recognize and tag items in images and video, enhance advertising and optimize shopping experiences. In financial services, machine learning is fueling research summarizes and insights that investment professionals can use to invest smarter and faster. In human resources, AI is helping to understand people’s strengths, skills and networks and property match them with jobs and schools. The number of use cases across industries is endless.
AI at the forefront of science and medicine:
More than 30 million people in the U.S. are living with cancer and or genetic disease. By integrating ribonucleic acid (RNA) splicing analytics and AI, Envisagenics aims to unlock previously inaccessible cures for hundreds of diseases caused by splicing errors. Envisagenics is a biotechnology company that applied AI to the genetic sequence of patients to discover new therapists. The company focuses on RNA splicing, a cellular process occurring in every call edits RNA to produce functional proteins required for our body to work.
Where the citizen’s voice is heard:
One of the most important measures of a city’s performances is through the feedback of its citizens. To solve this challenges, ZenCity has built an innovate application uses AI to analyze data from hundreds of thousands of public interactions, city hotlines and other communication channels to surface sentiment trends in real-time. The application provides an accurate citizen pulse on how they are viewing the city. City officials can interpret this data to drive more informed decisions that improve the lines of its people.
Anonymizing data with artificial intelligence:
With data privacy concerns on the rise, more and more companies are looking for partners can help them achieve the new European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance by anonymizing their data. Hazy is working to make a reality. Using any arbitrary structured data source, Hazy leverages deep learning algorithms with topological data analysis and knowledge representation technologies to accurately identify and classify personal and sensitive information.
Making speech recognition accessible to everyone:
Voiceitt’s mission is to make voice recognition technology available to everyone. Through a hybrid of unique statistical modeling and machine learning technologies in Microsoft Azure, Voiceitt will enable tens of millions of people to overcome communication barriers and helps them connect with the world. The company’s core mobile application is a hands-free voice recognition app enables face-to-face, real-time communicaton with everyone. In addition, the technology is designed for integration into smart homes, assistive and augmentative communications devices, and smart speakers.