← AE Global SummitPast Edition · 2023Boston, MA
Algorithmic Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Fall Summit
Boston, 2023
Monday 27th November 2023. PillarVC Headquarters, 500 Boylston St, 9th Floor, Boston, MA 02116.

How can we use modern algorithms to create new ideas and opportunities for scientific and industrial research and development? Leading scientists present algorithms from their work. Industry leaders find new use cases.

Keynotes
Professor Mina Konakovic Lukovic
Keynote
Professor Mina Konakovic Lukovic
MIT
Professor George Church
Keynote
Professor George Church
Harvard
Speakers
Professor Hidenori Tanaka
Speaker
Professor Hidenori Tanaka
Harvard
Dr James Whittington
Speaker
Dr James Whittington
Oxford; Stanford
Dr Momchil Tomov
Speaker
Dr Momchil Tomov
Motional; Harvard
Taylor Beck
Speaker
Taylor Beck
Pierrepont School
Leroy Sibanda
Speaker
Leroy Sibanda
MIT
Felix Sosa
Speaker
Felix Sosa
Harvard; Deepmind
Professor Dan V. Nicolau Jr
Speaker
Professor Dan V. Nicolau Jr
KCL; Oxford; Presentient Technologies
Jeremy Dohmann
Speaker
Jeremy Dohmann
Databricks
Dr Clara-Lea Bonzel
Speaker
Dr Clara-Lea Bonzel
Harvard
Dr Kelly Miller
Speaker
Dr Kelly Miller
Harvard
Dr Greg Kestin
Speaker
Dr Greg Kestin
Harvard
Dr Shahar Bracha
Speaker
Dr Shahar Bracha
MIT
Dr Mayank Agrawal
Speaker
Dr Mayank Agrawal
Roundtable; Princeton
Professor Robert Glushko
Speaker
Professor Robert Glushko
UC Berkeley
Dr Dan Roberts
Speaker
Dr Dan Roberts
MIT
Session Chairs
Ruairidh McLennan Battleday
Chair
Ruairidh McLennan Battleday
Harvard / MIT
Schedule

Monday 27th November 2023

Morning - Developing Algorithms for Science, Discovery and Innovation
09:00Registration and Coffee
09:30Introduction. Ruairidh McLennan Battleday (Harvard / MIT) - Cognitive Models of Algorithmic Science
10:00 - 10:30Keynote: Professor Mina Konakovic Lukovic (MIT) - Transforming Design and Fabrication With Computational Discovery
10:30 - 10:45Coffee
11:00 - 12:00Talks. Professor Hidenori Tanaka (Harvard) - Interpretable AI for Decoding the Blackbox of Natural and Artificial Intelligence. Dr James Whittington (Oxford; Stanford) - A Tale of Two Algorithms: Hippocampus and Prefrontal Cortex. Dr Momchil Tomov (Motional; Harvard) - Automated Neuroscientist: Algorithmic Theory Discovery for the Cognitive Sciences
12:00 - 12:20Coffee
12:20 - 12:40Breakout Rooms and Discussion. Room 1: Taylor Beck (Pierrepont School) - The Motivated Mind: Bipolar Disorder & the Roots of Drive. Room 2: Leroy Sibanda (MIT) - Conversing with the Future: The Evolution of AI in Enhancing Human Dialogue. Room 3: Felix Sosa (Harvard; Deepmind) - Just Innovating: The Innocent Eye in Algorithmic Science
12:40 - 13:00Introduction to PillarVC team
13:00 - 14:00Lunch

Monday 27th November 2023 (Afternoon)

Afternoon - Innovation algorithms in applications - synthetic biology, drug discovery, healthcare and robotics
14:00 - 14:30Reintroduction. Professor Dan V. Nicolau Jr (KCL; Oxford; Presentient Technologies) - Algorithms for Early Clinical Trial Stoppage with Guaranteed Preservation of Blinding
14:30 - 15:00Keynote: Professor George Church (Harvard)
15:00 - 15:20Coffee
15:20 - 15:40Break out rooms and discussion. Room 1: Jeremy Dohmann (Databricks) - Large Language Models and the New Economics of NLP Products. Room 2: Dr Clara-Lea Bonzel (Harvard) - Challenges and Opportunities for Integrating AI into the Clinical Pipeline. Room 3: Dr Kelly Miller and Dr Greg Kestin (Harvard) - Automated Physics Tutors and Incorporating AI as a Pedagogical Tool
15:40 - 16:00Coffee
16:00 - 16:40Talks. Dr Shahar Bracha (MIT) - Harnessing Evolution's Algorithm for Optimization and Discovery. Dr Mayank Agrawal (Roundtable; Princeton) - Turing Test Today: Understanding the Role of Humans in Human Research
16:40Closing Remarks. Professor Robert Glushko (UC Berkeley)
17:00 - 19:00Reception (Presentient Technologies)
Speaker Bios

Professor George Church

Harvard

Professor Church and their lab have published extensively on synthetic neurobiology and AI-LLM design of proteins, gene therapies and organs. They have co-founded 48 companies, where most of the recent ones have core ML/ML (Machine Learning+ Multiplex Libraries), e.g. DynoTx, ShapeTx, Jura, Patch, Nabla, ManifoldBio. Professor Church was one of the six instigators of Obama's BRAIN Initiative—and directed one of the 3 teams in the $100M IARPA MICrONS project to develop new technologies to obtain connectomes and integrate them with brain activity map data.

Professor Mina Konakovic Lukovic

MIT

Professor Lukovic leads the algorithmic design group at CSAIL, MIT. Their research focuses on computer graphics, computational fabrication, 3D geometry processing and machine learning, including architectural geometry and design of smart materials. Before this position, they held a prestigious Schmidt Science Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT CSAIL working in the Computational Fabrication Group.

Professor Robert Glushko

UC Berkeley

Professor Glushko, of the Cognitive Science Program at UC Berkeley, is a distinguished researcher and business leader. Their research in academia and industry (including Bell Labs) and directorship of several companies helped establish the backbone of business and commerce on the internet. In addition, they have endowed a number of professorial, doctoral and undergraduate prizes within the field of cognitive science and have written several books, including Document Engineering and The Discipline of Organizing.

Professor Dan V. Nicolau Jr

KCL; Oxford; Presentient Technologies

Professor Nicolau is a mathematician, computer scientist and physician, with leading research on algorithms, biological computation and neuroimmunology. They are also a serial entrepreneur, with their most recent venture into the automated statistical management of large-scale clinical trials.

Professor Hidenori Tanaka

Harvard

Professor Tanaka is a Group Leader in the NTT Research program at Harvard University, where they study the physics of natural and artificial intelligence. They use advanced algorithms to extract and understand computational mechanisms from deep neural networks.

Dr Kelly Miller

Harvard

Dr Miller is a senior lecturer in applied physics at Harvard. She completed her Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard in 2015. Her research investigates the use of modern AI techniques to build advanced physics tutors. At Harvard, Kelly teaches interactive, project-based courses in both physics and engineering. She is also a co-founder of Perusall, a collaborative reading platform designed to help get students prepared for class.

Dr James Whittington

Oxford; Stanford

Dr Whittington is an artificial intelligence researcher and computational neuroscientist and has introduced many of the leading frameworks in biologically inspired AI. They have recently become the chief technical adviser at Zyphra, a start up that develops technologies based on their work on local computing algorithms.

Dr Mayank Agrawal

Roundtable; Princeton

Mayank Agrawal is co-founder and CEO of Roundtable, a Y-Combinator backed company providing AI infrastructure for user and market researchers. Previously, Mayank completed his PhD in Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University where he published in Science, PNAS and Psychological Review

Dr Shahar Bracha

MIT

Dr Bracha is a world expert on algorithms in synthetic biology, where they are developing approaches to find new molecular tools from natural environments as well as learning from nature about how to engineer new ones, with applications in neuroscience, brain recording, ecology and carbon capture. They also advise at Epeius Pharma, a start-up based on their PhD research.

Dr Dan Roberts

MIT

Dr Roberts is an AI Fellow at Sequoia Capital and a Research Affiliate at the Center for Theoretical Physics at MIT, where they also research ways in which the tools and perspectives from theoretical physics can be applied to artificial intelligence. Beyond this, Dr Roberts is a serial entrepreneur and co-authored a book on of The Principles of Deep Learning Theory.

Dr Greg Kestin

Harvard

Dr Kestin is currently the Associate Director of Science Education and a Lecturer on Physics. Over his career, he has conducted research in nuclear physics, particle physics, fusion energy, gravitational wave physics and science education. As a Digital Producer at NOVA | PBS he created award-winning media, from documentaries to educational interactives to an original video series, "What the Physics?!"

Dr Clara-Lea Bonzel

Harvard

Dr Bonzel is a data Scientist and technical manager at Harvard Medical School, expert in analyzing large-scale electronic health records data. They advise on machine learning phenotyping algorithms at the US department of Veterans Affairs, Boston Children's Hospital and Mass Gen.

Dr Momchil Tomov

Motional; Harvard

Dr Tomov is a computational neuroscientist that wants to build themselves out of the discovery loop. Using advanced theory and AI algorithms they are working on creating an "algorithmic neuroscientist" that can automatically extract meaningful theories from neural data. In addition they are a senior research scientist at Motional, working on planning algorithms for self-driving cars.

Felix Sosa

Harvard; Deepmind

Felix is an AI researcher and entrepreneur, completing his PhD in computational cognitive science at Harvard and the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines (MIT). They work on formal analysis of learning algorithms based on program synthesis and programming languages and hold visiting researcher status at Google DeepMind.

Leroy Sibanda

MIT

Leroy is a founder in stealth mode and graduate student at MIT, working on complex systems design and analysis in AI, robotics and electrical engineering.

Jeremy Dohmann

Databricks

Jeremy is a research scientist at Databricks and was formerly a leading member of MosaicML. They manage a team of researchers building out LLM-based database technologies and regularly publish guides on training and integrating modern ML.

Taylor Beck

Pierrepont School

Taylor Beck is a writer, a teacher and a former neuroscience researcher. They hold a BA from Princeton in Neuroscience, an MS from MIT and an MA from NYU. Their journalism and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, Scientific American and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications.

Conference Chairs
Dr Ruairidh McLennan Battleday
Chair
Dr Ruairidh McLennan Battleday
Harvard · MIT · Thinking About Thinking
Advisory Board
Dr Stephanie Oestreich
Strategic Advisor
Dr Stephanie Oestreich
Myeloma Investment Fund (MMMF)
Strategic Advisor
Professor Robert Glushko
Strategic Advisor
Professor Robert Glushko
UC Berkeley
Strategic Advisor
Professor Nancy Nersessian
Scientific Advisor
Professor Nancy Nersessian
Harvard
Scientific Advisor
Nishi Jain
Financial Advisor
Nishi Jain
Leerink Partners
Financial Advisor