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Draper
Drowning in Data? Your Enterprise Might Be an AI Candidate
Troy Lau
At Draper we focus on the design, development and deployment of advanced technological solutions for the world’s most challenging and important problems. But that is only part of our job. Our customers expect field-ready solutions and advanced support along with those great solutions. Two contrasting but equally important areas are the rise of big data and the small-data challenges of many real-world problems. Developing tools to unlock the nuggets of intelligence buried in that data is a looming challenge for many.
The Artificial Intelligence, Human, and Data Technologies Division at Draper has been working to put technology in the hands of our customers to uncover important patterns in their data. For example, we are lead developers of a technology called the Tactical Assault Kit, or TAK, which is a map-based software application that enables coordination among thousands of users with features such as a position data, chat, mission planning and shared overlays. A first responder can use it during a rescue-and-recovery operation to designate pickup points for evacuation on a shared map. Fire and rescue crews have been trained to use the app for location tracking of fire equipment, establishing fire perimeters from aircraft and building fire model forecasts.
With the ongoing growth of collected data, the same techniques for data fusion and data visualization can be applied to many other fields, such as logistics, data center management and financial services.
Another area of focus is social media. Social media and news data streams are increasingly used to forecast events ranging from election results and financial market fluctuations to urban crime and civil unrest. Most customers have tons of social media data, and we are giving them the tools to learn from it. For example, Draper developed a near real-time warning system using social media that can predict the public’s response to major news, such as a disease outbreak. Hospitals and government agencies can use it to predict the social effects of an epidemic and be more aggressive in their prevention strategies.
To Analyze The Growing Amount of Satellite Imagery More Effectively, Draper Developed Algorithms That Combined Machine and Human-Guided Learning
Perhaps the clearest example comes from satellites, which are growing in number every day. Governments, industries and even private citizens can benefit from frequent imaging of the Earth’s changing surface by small satellites, but only if the data can be quickly accessed and understood.
To analyze the growing amount of satellite imagery more effectively, Draper developed algorithms that combined machine and human-guided learning. The tools autonomously identify even subtle pattern changes, enable quantification of analysis and speed up the processing of large data sets. This visual knowledge of life on Earth is helping us understand more about precision agriculture, extreme storm prediction, disaster relief and even endangered animal protection.
These are just a few examples of how we’re using technology to make decisions easier for our customers. Whether formulating a concept and developing each component to achieve a field-ready prototype or combining existing technologies in new ways, Draper engineers apply multidisciplinary approaches that deliver new capabilities to customers. Your data are ready to be explored through the many new data science techniques in artificial intelligence and machine learning. What’s your big data opportunity?
