Innovators honored for advances in edge AI, biometrics and deepfake detection

Researchers and technology developers innovating in biometrics and adjacent areas have been recognized for patent achievements, new artificial intelligence models and influential ideas by various associations and publications.

The founder of Carnegie Mellon University’s biometric lab, who is also Oost’s chief AI scientist, was recognized as the inventor of the year by the Pittsburgh Intellectual Property Law Association while Singaporean analysis scientist Wang Weimin received $100,000 in prize money for his deepfake detection algorithm. Anonybit was named as an honorable mention on Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas Awards and Hummingbirds AI will compete with four other startups at the Vision Tank Summit. Ambiq, a low-power semiconductor company with ties to the biometrics industry, took home four Stevie prizes for business innovation, including a gold award.

Oosto chief scientist named Innovator of the Year by IP law association

Professor Marios Savvides, the founder of Carnegie Mellon University’s biometric lab, was named the Innovator of the Year 2022 by the Pittsburgh Intellectual Property Law Association for his role in technological achievements and development of patents that are deemed economically significant and/or have made a positive impact on society.

Savvides serves as the chief AI scientist for vision AI and face biometrics provider Oosto and a professor in AI at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also directs the CyLab Biometrics Center. He is profiled as a widely published expert in biometrics with 35 patents and patent publications, and 250 publications in facial, iris, pattern, and object recognition.

“The pace of innovations in biometric AI that translate into economic progress is accelerating and would not be possible without the support of many entities. Thus, it is an especially great honor to be the recipient of the Inventor of the Year 2022 Award from the Pittsburgh Intellectual Property Law Association,” says Savvides.

ByteDance employee wins $72K prize for deepfake detection

Singaporean analysis scientist Weimin Wang, an employee at ByteDance, prevailed in a five-month challenge to develop the best AI model to detect deepfakes, according to Techy Insight.

The competition involving over 400 groups was organized by AI Singapore with its Trusted Media Program to find AI solutions for “fake media” like deepfakes. It provided the participants with a challenge dataset of original and fake videos and challenged them to build AI models that can output a probability that a given video is altered digitally.

Out of all the participants, Wang’s AI model was the most successful at noticing digital manipulations, with a 98.53 percent success rate. He received a SG$100,000 (approximately US$72,365) prize and a SG$300,000 (approximately US$217,098) startup grant.

Wang says he hopes to apply his AI model into ByteDance’s platform and supply deepfake detection as a service to its purchasers.

ByteDance is the parent company of TikTok.

Anonybit biometric cloud infrastructure honored by Fast Company

Anonybit’s biometric cloud infrastructure earned an honorable mention by Fast Company as an ‘On the Rise’ technology.

The company’s decentralized biometric identity platform on the cloud did not make the list in the category that is part of the World Changing Ideas Awards, but was recognized for its role in positive social innovation.

Commenting on the listing, Frances Zelazny, CEO and co-founder of Anonybit, says, “This recognition from Fast Company validates our novel approach to securing biometrics and other personal data and digital assets. With a world increasingly on line and moving into the metaverse, our society is at a critical juncture having to solve multiple challenges at the nexus of identity, security, fraud prevention and privacy. Our goal is to be the cornerstone for how we address these issues and establish trust and we look forward to making this vision a reality.”

Anonybit achieved an industry first when it added 1:N biometric identification capabilities to its decentralized biometrics cloud service, proving that large-scale deployments such as government ID applications can be securely decentralized.

Ambiq wins four Stevie awards for innovation

Ambiq won a total of four Stevie awards from the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards and the American Business Awards in separate innovation categories for its low-power semiconductor solutions.

The company earned the gold statuette for Innovation in Technology and a silver award for Most Valuable Technical Innovation for its partnership with Singapore’s TraceTogether COVID-19 program. It took home the silver prize in the Achievement in Product Innovation and the bronze prize in the Most Valuable Technical Innovation.

A press release says Ambiq’s Subthreshold Power Optimized Technology (SPOT) platform was recognized for its ultra-low power semiconductor solutions that have driven energy efficiency and productivity with wearables, smart homes and buildings, automotive end markets, and industrial applications.

Its role in the TraceTogether program involved its Apollo3 Blue system-on-a-chip to enable community contact tracing with COVID-19.

“We are passionate about innovation and strive to achieve our mission of enabling intelligence in all endpoint devices,” comments Charlene Wan, vice president of branding, marketing, and investor relations at Ambiq. “The awards are a wonderful way to recognize our team members and their contributions in both the US and ASEAN region.”

The Stevie awards add to the accolades receives for SPOT, with it winning the Business Intelligence Group Innovation Award in January.

Hummingbirds AI to compete at startup competition

Hummingbirds AI will present its Guacamole biometric authentication platform on May 18 in front of a panel of judges at the Vision Tank Start-Up Competition to vie for funding and support.

The company will contend against four other finalists in the event that will examine their product for technology innovation, business plan, team, and business opportunity. It will pitch Guacamole in front of a panel of judges and a live online audience who will vote for the Audience Choice Awards.

The winner of the Judges’ Award takes home $5,000, while the winners of both awards will receive a one-year membership in the Edge AI and Vision Alliance, one-on-one advice from the judges, and introductions to potential investors, customers, employees, and suppliers.

The Vision Tank Start-Up Competition is part of the 2022 Embedded Vision Summit that aims to showcase ventures that use visual AI and computer vision to solve problems.

Hummingbirds AI pitched Guacamole at SXSW Pitch in March.

Article Topics

Ambiq  |  Anonybit  |  awards  |  biometrics  |  CyLab  |  deepfake detection  |  deepfakes  |  edge AI  |  Hummingbirds AI  |  Oosto