Softecon 2019

Conference programme

Artificial intelligence: a view of the current horizon

Marek Havrda

What trends do we expect to see in the use of AI? The arrival of AI is starting a revolution that companies and countries will have to adapt to sooner or later if they don't want to be left behind. This talk will delve into the potential impacts of AI on the world around us, touch on the issues being addressed in relation to ethics and regulation, and outline the areas that the business world should focus on to benefit from modern technology.

How has artificial intelligence revolutionised biometrics and when will it transform your industry too?

Ján Lunter

Over the past five years, biometrics has changed enormously thanks to artificial intelligence methods. We will show how new, radically better solutions to old problems have emerged, what new challenges in biometrics artificial intelligence has brought and how it can gradually solve them. The advent of artificial intelligence in human recognition has been very rapid relative to other industries; the revolutionary change that has already taken place in biometrics is only just beginning in other fields. Together, we will look at the main factors influencing the speed of application of AI in each industry. Is your industry "at risk" or do you still have plenty of time before AI replaces you?

How to get started with artificial intelligence

Juraj Rosa

How to get started with artificial intelligence in business? Going from initial idea to successful implementation is no cakewalk. Let's take a look together at the steps any company must go through if it wants to meaningfully leverage the potential of AI in its business. How to set expectations, how to evangelize the need for change in your organization, or what areas and solutions to focus on when you're serious about AI but haven't yet mustered the courage? Let's do it!

Which parts of Data Analytics will survive the (first) robot attack?

Filip Vítek

Many industries in Slovakia do not take the threat of artificial intelligence replacing their jobs seriously. They think that we are "behind" as a country and that it will take longer for automation processes to break through. So we are happy to welcome the arrival of new manufacturing plants, for which there is slowly no one left to work today. Data analysts, since they are working with artificial intelligence (or at least telling themselves they are), feel that they are on the right side of the river. After all, data will be the "new oil" of business, so professions working with it will be spared, right? But the reality is much harsher, and some of the analytics roles will be the first to fall victim to robotization. How not to wake up one day as useless? Is it possible to prepare for this trend? In what ways can we improve? Which skills will be your ticket to the Noah's Ark of analytics?

How will smart machines help us?

Andrej Žlnka, Martin Pálka, Dušan Slimák

Artificial intelligence is the number one topic today. It's not new, this buzzword has been with us for almost 80 years. But something has changed: computers have learned to pretend to be human. This ability is measured by the so-called Turing test, and for a few years now, machines have been passing it successfully. One such example is virtual assistants and chatbots, which are able to answer our questions about the weather in the morning or order something for us without the other party realising that they have not spoken to a human.

How to harness this potential of AI in the banking sector? Can we digitise the entire process from client acquisition to product sales? Together, we will look at how AI can help us in sales and service activities.

Panel discussion: everything you want to know about AI

Marek Havrda, Ján Lunter, Filip Vítek, Jiří Dobeš, Ondrej Svačina

The arrival of artificial intelligence brings entirely new opportunities, but also entirely new risks. How much can we trust the results provided by artificial intelligence? How can we ensure privacy protection while harnessing the business potential of new technologies? Will artificial intelligence limit human autonomy too much? When is it ethical to use AI for 'nudging'? If we delegate decisions to AI, how do we provide an audit trail? What are the technical solutions to these risks? To what extent can AI itself help us address the risks and negative impacts that its implementation brings?

Neural networks analyse our journeys

Ondrej Svačina

When deciding how best to allocate limited funding for the repair and reconstruction of our roads, it is very important to know their current condition. Road surface defects, such as cracks or potholes, are a straightforward way of expressing their condition. Last year at this conference, we talked about photographic equipment and the idea of analysing the images produced using artificial intelligence methods. This year, we will show how neural networks trained by us can detect faults themselves and categorize them for further processing. The presentation will include the results of success tests.

Artificial intelligence and consumer credit

Jiří Dobeš

An innovative Czech bank has challenged artificial intelligence to a "duel" with the bank's experts. The aim was to improve the behavioural model of the loan applicant, in particular to increase the likelihood of accepting a consumer loan offered by the bank. Based on the consumer's profile and behaviour, an artificial intelligence model was thus created whose predictive power was almost double that of the model used by the bank. What was the journey from the vision to the final model in a production environment that enabled the bank to offer a tailored product to customers with a high acceptance rate?

Stupidity and simplicity wins (and it's good)

David Tvrdoň, Ondrej Podstupka

It took us at SME an awfully long time to let go of picking the lowest growing fruits and primitivism when creating new digital projects. And that's true for successful global digital products, where the same is true - people don't like complex technology, so the simpler the better and the bigger the impact. It doesn't apply to absolutely everyone. It's easy to illustrate with a few examples. The whole subscription economy is a beautiful example.