Preliminary Session Catalog - Amazon re:MARS

Preliminary Session Catalog
Amazon re:MARS is a new global AI event on Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics, and Space. This event gathers
experts and forward thinkers in these four rapidly advancing domains to share and learn how organizations (including
Amazon) are delivering results using these technologies today, and building sustainable businesses for the future. The
broad framework helps attendees think bigger and more creatively, beyond our daily work and immediate worlds, to
learn, imagine, and create at a higher collective level. You will learn why and how to apply the latest AI advances in
your business and work in more than 100 sessions and hands-on workshops.

Please explore the session catalog for a summary of the types of content you’ll have access to as a re:MARS attendee.

A Chance Encounter, Sushi, Robots, and the Environment
  Robots can help save our fragile planet. Erika Ebbel Angle, a RSE co-founder and Ph.D. in Biochemistry, will discuss
  the importance of leveraging robotic technology in saving our oceans from the invasive and venomous lionfish that
  are causing devastating reduction in biodiversity and damaging coral reefs. She will detail efforts that are underway
  to create an affordable, unmanned undersea robot designed to dive 1000 feet deep and control the lionfish popula-
  tion. Intended for use by fisherman, tourists and environmentalists, the RSE Guardian robot will address an serious
  environmental problem by creating an economically scalable solution for catching lionfish, establishing a new food
  source, and inspiring future generations in the process.
  Dr. Erika Angle     Co-Founder, Director of Education    Ixcela
Harnessing the Potential of Artificial Intelligence, While Avoiding the Pitfalls
  Bringing compute power to our palms has been one of the most powerful transitions in recent history. We can be
  anywhere in the world and stay connected to what’s important in our lives. However, it has also brought unintended
  consequences, like children losing social skills by having their faces buried in their phones. Artificial intelligence has
  the opportunity to make an even bigger positive impact on society. Naveen Rao, neuroscientist, corporate vice pres-
  ident, and head of Intel’s AI efforts, will discuss how to think about AI in a way that helps bring about the positive
  aspects of the technology’s future, and try to avoid the pitfalls.
  Naveen Rao        Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Artificial Intelligence Products Group   Intel

Solving Earth’s Biggest Problems with a Cloud in Space
  Can a cloud in space impact the world’s poverty? Are there ways to make agriculture more efficient? Can internet
  connectivity for the world change how the world lives? Join this interactive discussion as we consider new approach-
  es to solving Earth’s problems including how a cloud in space could positively impact our lives using space data.
  Yvonne Hodge        Vice President of IT   Lockheed Martin Space
Follow the Money: What We Can Learn from Venture Capital Investment in Automation
  Venture capital firms are making big investments in the future of automation. Where they are putting their money
  is lending insight into the big trends that are expected to drive automation: mobility, artificial intelligence, drones,
  smart gripping, and machine vision — along with a few surprises.
  Jeff Burnstein     President   A3 - Association for Advancing Automation

Roving Robots on the Red Planet
  How do you design a robot that needs to be remotely commanded from 200 million miles away, is tasked with
  unlocking the history of an entire planet, cannot be physically maintained, and must not fail? Join “Professional
  Martian” Dr. Tanya Harrison for a tour of the inner workings of robotic emissaries on Mars, and catch a live demo of
  the future of rover tech and operations.
  Dr. Tanya Harrison      Director of Research, NewSpace Initiative   Arizona State University
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How TED Uses Artificial Intelligence to Spread Ideas Farther and Faster
  TED Talks are a powerful way to share ideas and spark dialogue. To make TED content accessible, volunteer trans-
  lators need to subtitle more than 300,000 minutes of video this year alone. See how TED leverages Amazon Tran-
  scribe and Amazon Translate to speed up the creation of crowdsourced subtitles, expand the online reach of ideas,
  and transform subtitle production in media.
  Jenny Zurawell   Director TED Translators
  Helena Batt    Deputy Director TED Translators
From Seed To Store: Using Artificial Intelligence to Optimize the Indoor Farms of the Future
  For the last 10,000 years, large-scale agriculture has lived outdoors, optimized to withstand unpredictable environ-
  mental conditions and long supply chains. But what possibilities do you unlock when you can control every single
  environmental factor, from the light intensity to nutrient mix to air flow? In this talk, Bowery Farming co-founder
  and CEO Irving Fain will share how machine learning and computer vision can be used in indoor vertical farms to op-
  timize and scale agricultural production to create higher yielding, better tasting, safer, and more sustainably locally
  grown produce in cities around the world.
  Irving Fain    Co-founder and CEO          Bowery Farms
Where Will the Road to Space Take You?
  This year, Blue Origin will send its first astronauts to space on its New Shepard rocket. Democratization of space is
  key to the company’s long-term mission to enable a future where millions of people are living and working in space,
  moving heavy industry off Earth to protect and preserve the planet for generations to come. To achieve this, the
  cost of access to space must be lowered, which is why Blue Origin is focusing on the development of operational-
  ly reusable rockets to send more humans to space than ever before. Join Patrick Zeitouni, the head of Advanced
  Development Programs for Blue Origin, on the journey to that future. Hear about operational reuse at work and the
  important part the Moon plays in humanity realizing this bright future.
  Patrick Zeitouni      Head of Advanced Development Programs        Blue Origin
Investing in Technology Breakthroughs
  This session will outline managing investments in science and technology breakthroughs that challenge the status
  quo to bring futuristic ideas to life.
  Josh Wolfe      Co-Founder & Managing Director       Lux Capital
Unlocking the Creativity of Humans
  ABB Chief Digital Officer Guido Jouret believes robots can automate jobs that fit one of the 3 D’s – dirty, dangerous,
  or dull – allowing people to focus on more creative, highly skilled tasks. In this session, he will discuss the future of
  job automation with robotics and the positive impacts this will have on our society and careers.
  Guido Jouret       Chief Digital Officer    ABB
Creating a Friendly Robot with Cloud-connected Artificial Intelligence: Anki’s Vector
  In this session we will share learnings about building a robot with a big personality. Meet Vector, Anki’s cloud-con-
  nected, large-scale consumer robot. We’ll describe how we approached our platform, solutions to some of the hard-
  est problems we faced, how we use AWS, Amazon Lex, and Alexa, and how Anki develops robots with personality.
  We’ll close with where we think the future is brightest for robots and the cloud.
  Tom Eliaz      Director, SW Engineering - Cloud     Anki
  Ben Morse      Senior Manager, Cloud AI Anki
From Business Intelligence to Artificial Intelligence
  INVISTA is a manufacturer of chemicals, polymers, fabrics, and fibers and delivers products and brands incorporated
  into your clothing, your car, and even your carpet. Join this session to learn about INVISTA’s transformative journey
  from business intelligence to artificial intelligence, where they will share their experience empowering data science
  by adjusting talent and processes and building a modern analytics platform. Experimentation with change manage-
  ment, project management, model maintenance, and development lifecycles has helped drive profitable innova-
  tions.
  Elizabeth Gonzalez       Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics Leader     INVISTA

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Rooftop Landings for Safe Urban Drone Operations
  Once autonomous unmanned and manned aircraft can safely share the low-altitude skies, we will unlock the future
  of urban air mobility. But this possibility poses a variety of new challenges. For example, how do autonomous
  drones get out of the way in an emergency? This session will outline research on rooftops as a nearby landing option
  for small unmanned aircraft systems.
  Ella M. Atkins     Professor of Robotics and Aerospace Engineering   University of Michigan

Precision Medicine for Healthier Lives
  GE Healthcare has developed machine learning models using Amazon SageMaker to track and predict brain devel-
  opment in a growing fetus. Powered by these models, the new offering SonoCNS drives the placement of the probe
  to evaluate congenital and neurological issues in the fetus, for example, to accurately measure and understand
  brain volume growth. Using Amazon SageMaker for machine learning, GE Healthcare’s operators can quickly detect
  abnormalities, helping to save babies’ lives and give parents peace of mind. For hospitals, this also translates to
  improved productivity, efficiency, and accuracy.
  Keith Bigelow      GM of Analytics   GE Healthcare

Intelligent Identity and Access Management
  As one of the largest banks in the U.S., Capital One prioritizes a responsible and well-managed data environment
  and ecosystem. To meet these needs, Capital One has combined machine learning and native AWS graph capabilities
  to build a platform that proactively informs access levels for individual associates and teams. The platform results in
  a faster, enhanced on-boarding process, workflow, and productivity for associates, and helps mitigate risk through
  proactive management of privileges and licenses.
  Paul Hurlocker      Vice President, Center for Machine Learning   Capital One

Scaling Photorealistic 3D Content Creation with Machine Learning
  Customer demand is driving a need for immersive experiences that use rich 3D content. How can 3D content be of-
  fered for every product on Amazon? Existing methods for capturing content, particularly in computer vision, do not
  yield results that rival hand-built 3D models. In this session, we will explore ways to bridge the gap using machine
  learning.
  Eric Bennett      Senior Manager Software Development, Imaging Technology

When SpongeBob Met Alexa
  Viacom and Xandra are collaborating to push the limits of voice design with a focus on exceptional user experience.
  Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob Challenge is one of the highest rated Alexa skills for kids. Learn how to build delight and
  fun into an Alexa skill through conversation design, rich soundscapes, advanced game mechanics, and analytics.
  Zach Johnson   Founder and CEO Xandra
  Tim Adams    VP, Emerging Products Lab Viacom

How Amazon Uses Machine Learning to Mitigate Customer Risk
  Amazon uses machine learning to identify products that could pose a potential safety risk to customers before they
  become customer-reported safety concerns. Learn how we approach these problems to yield a significantly higher
  product suppression rate than traditional reactive approaches.
  Wei Xiang       Safety Risk Product Manager

An Inventory of Tested and Qualified Space Parts Exists Already in Space
  One of the top barriers to building a lunar base is the cost of getting materials to the Moon. It costs $3,400 per
  pound just to get material into Earth orbit, yet more than $20 billion worth of salvageable material is parked in
  graveyard orbit, waiting for someone to figure out how to salvage it. This paper presents a framework for mining
  this junkyard for the purpose of accelerating the construction of a lunar base.
  Keith Volkert     CEO   Satellite Consulting, Inc.

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It’s Already the Jetsons’ Age: Getting Started with Robots and AWS RoboMaker
  Robots have become a part of daily life, but is robotics development accessible for everyone? Learn how to build
  robotics with AWS RoboMaker. This session will cover the Robot Operating System (ROS) and Gazebo, building and
  deploying a robotics app, and launching simulations to generate the 3D artificial world in which the robot will move.
  Alejandra Novack   Technical Evangelist
  Andrew Lafranchise   Senior Software Development Engineer

Artificial Intelligence That Empowers
  Hear June CEO and co-founder Matt Van Horn share the story of the June Oven. Using AI and machine learning, the
  oven not only helps busy professionals become confident in their cooking skills, it helps people with disabilities cook
  for themselves, and helps people retain their independence.
  Matt Van Horn       CEO and Co-Founder       June

Applying Machine Learning to Help Detect Financial Crime
  Regulators are encouraging financial institutions to experiment with machine learning to detect suspicious activity.
  In the U.S. and Europe, the cost of fighting financial crime surpasses $20 billion. In this presentation, we will outline
  ways financial institutions can leverage the power of machine learning to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of
  financial crime investigations, and help institutions manage risk.
  Filipe Scoton    FSI Solutions Architect

Realizing Nature’s Secrets to Make Bug-like Robots
  This session will take a closer look at the incredible bodies of cockroaches, geckos, and other small animals to exam-
  ine what it can teach robotics engineers. The session will also outline the latest developments in the field of mi-
  crorobotics, real-world applications of these robots, and hint at how close (or far) we are from realizing predictions
  from science fiction.
  Kaushik Jayaram      Postdoc Scholar       Harvard University

Transmitting Touch and Dexterity with Tactile Telerobots
  The sense of touch, which is essential for human dexterity, is virtually absent from today’s robotic hands. Hear,
  see, and feel how Shadow Robot Company, SynTouch, and HaptX are combining the world’s most advanced robot-
  ic hands, sensors, and haptic gloves to create a new generation of tactile telerobots that can extend the reach of
  humankind.
  Jeremy Fishel    Chief Technology Officer      SynTouch

The Future of Conversational Interaction
  What technologies have come together to support conversational interaction today? What will voice-first experienc-
  es sound like in 2022? Voice services like Alexa have opened a new channel to deliver greater customer value every
  day, and the technology continues to evolve. In this session, we’ll review the advances in core technology, and look
  ahead to the future when we’ll approach the full potential of voice as an interface.
  Stephen Potter      Senior Manager, Product Management - AI

From Turkeys to Movie Tickets: Increase Customer Reach, Self-service and Commerce with Amazon Alexa
  How do some of the biggest consumer brands take advantage of voice services to grow engagement and market
  share? Amazon Alexa has paved new ways to connect brands to customers in the home as well as on the go using
  conversational AI. Brands can use Alexa skills to increase engagement, enable self-service, and even sell content and
  goods, but the best approach or practical steps may not be clear for your business. You will learn how Mobiquity
  helped two leading brands, Butterball and Atom Tickets, tackle this challenge.
  Jonathan Patrizio     Principal Solutions Architect    Mobiquity

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Confessions of a CEO: Why I Became a Believer in Robots and Automation
  In 1998, Marlin Steel Wire Products made baskets for bagels selling for $12 apiece, but was faced with imported
  baskets selling for less than the cost of steel and the rise of the Atkins Diet. Today, the firm makes precision-engi-
  neered wire containers for the aerospace, medical, and automotive industries that can sell for more than $10,000.
  Hear from CEO Drew Greenblatt, who invested in robotics and automation and transformed the company he and his
  father bought for $600,000 in 1998, turning it into one with more than $6 million in annual revenue.
  Drew Greenblatt      President and Owner    Marlin Steel Wire Products LLC

Using Language Data to Improve Healthcare for All
  Language data is easy and inexpensive to capture, and abundant in healthcare. In this session, Roam Insight will
  share how they use AWS to create natural language processing systems that help healthcare companies use lan-
  guage data to understand patient population trends, build predictive models, and leverage more data to inform
  treatment choices.
  Alex Turkeltaub     Founder/CEO    Roam Analytics

Accelerating Machine Learning Projects
  Cut down on development time for machine-learning projects with third-party algorithms and models in a secure
  environment using Amazon SageMaker. In this session, we’ll talk through the sample case of a machine-learning
  developer who wants to use machine learning to automate the auto insurance accident claim process.
  Kanchan Waikar  Senior Solutions Architect, AWS Marketplace for Machine Learning
  Srini Sankaran Senior Product manager, AWS Marketplace for machine learning

A Hype-free and Cutting-edge Discussion on Autonomous Driving
  How close are we to fully autonomous vehicles? What would happen if we put the current technology on the road
  today? What are the problems that still need to be solved? This session will cover the latest advances in self-driving
  cars without the marketing, providing a true picture of how far we are from never touching a steering wheel again.
  Matthew Johnson-Roberson        Associate Professor   University of Michigan

When is My Shipment Arriving? Providing Dynamic ETAs for Amazon Logistics Deliveries
  In 2018, Amazon’s Customer Delivery Experience team launched a new feature that provides customers with an ETA
  for shipments delivered by Amazon Logistics. ETAs are computed once the delivery driver departs from the delivery
  station using a machine-learning approach. Hear how the team enhanced the customer experience with accurate
  delivery estimates.
  Shashi Mittal     Senior Ops Research Scientist

Tracking Climate Change from the Sky
  Satellite imagery and data crunching can help us monitor indicators of climate change and find smarter solutions.
  Learn how Descartes Labs is using the combination to track nitrogen dioxide emissions and the emergence of wild-
  fires in real time, allowing humankind to understand our impact on Earth in new ways.
  Mark Johnson      CEO & Co-Founder     Descartes Labs

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Amazon Locker: Combining Machne Learning and Mathematical Optimization
  Amazon Locker posed new challenges for Amazon. Soaring demand for deliveries and the variability in package
  dwell times represented a complex business problem and a novel application of yield management. Hear how
  Amazon developed a hybrid approach combining machine learning and mathematical optimization to dynamically
  manage locker capacity.
  Samyukta Sethuraman         Research Scientist

How We Make Alexa Sound More Human-like
  Voice is central to the magic of Amazon Alexa. Customers embrace Alexa because interacting with her is simple,
  natural and engaging. In this talk, we will provide a glimpse into how customers have created engaging voice-based
  applications, how we’re using state-of-the-art deep neural networks to make Alexa sound even more human-like,
  and factors that influece our voice-first strategy.
  Nikhil Sharma      Sr. Manager, Speech
  Andrew Breen       Sr. Product Manager, Speech
The Open-source Bionic Leg: Constructing and Controlling a Prosthesis Driven by Artificial Intelligence
  For decades, sci-fi movies have shown the promise of life with bionic limbs, but they are nowhere to be seen in to-
  day’s society. We have created an open-source bionic leg to help transform these robots from fiction to reality. This
  talk will focus on innovations in our design approach and showcase a leading AI-based control strategy for wearable
  robots. Finally, we’ll demo our open-source bionic leg in action with a participant on stage.
  Elliott J. Rouse    Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering   University of Michigan

Using Maching Learning and Artificial Intelligence to Make the Smart Home Smarter
  Learn how Amazon applies machine learning and artificial intelligence to make the smart home easier to use, more
  responsive to individual customer habits, and more secure.
  Evan Welbourne       Manager, Machine Learning, Smart Home

Transforming Trash Collection: Turning Sensor Data into Machine Learning Models
  Zolitron’s Z-Node autonomously captures data from the physical world like temperature, vibration frequencies, and
  GPS data. Zilitron uses Amazon SageMaker to create use-case specific machine learning models using these data
  streams. For example, Z-Node’s vibration data is used to determine when a trash collection bin is or will be full, so
  that waste collection services can optimize their routes, saving time and energy. Zolitron will discuss how they clean
  data, and then build, train, and deploy machine learning models using AWS.
  Arndt-Hendrik Zinn      Founder and CEO     Zolitron Technology
Artificial Intelligence in Space: Change Detection with Radar Satellite Data
  ICEYE revolutionized the application of conventional radar satellite imaging, significantly bringing down the cost of
  launching small radar satellite missions. Learn how ICEYE has enabled broader use cases including using the tech-
  nology to track pirates on the open seas.
  Pekka Laurila      CSO & co-founder   ICEYE
Building Natural Alexa Conversations
  As natural conversation is unpredictable, an engaging voice experience should be, too. Building an unpredictable
  voice interface can be incredibly challenging. Learn how to think about voice interactions like rolling the dice, and
  approach voice design in a way that can scale to dozens or even thousands of permutations for customers.
  Jeff Blankenburg      Senior Technical Evangelist

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Effective Policies: Automatic State Policy Creation with Deep Reinforcement Learning
  Watch what happens when we turn to artificial intelligence to generate state policy decisions. Leveraging decades of
  U.S. economic and crime data, we’ll automatically run counterfactual analysis to estimate the impact of gun control
  policy at the state level, using it as the signal to train our reinforcement learning agent to produce policies that are
  expected to reduce violent crime.
  Emily Webber     Machine Learning Specialist, Solutions Architect

True Human-Robot Collaboration: The Next Step for Industrial Automation
  In the last decade, we’ve seen dramatic changes in the application of industrial robots. The advent of collaborative
  robots, or cobots, has brought robotics to previously underserved markets. In this session, we will predict the ex-
  pansion of collaboration from its current state of safe proximity to cognitive collaboration where the robots interact
  more fully with their human counterparts.
  Erik Nieves    Founder   PlusOne Robotics

Speech Emotion Detection
  Using only speech samples, machine learning can detect emotions in a speaker’s voice. This session will outline
  modeling challenges including label uncertainty and robustness to non-emotional latent factors, and present an
  adversarial auto-encoder learning approach that can be applied to a wide range of models.
  Viktor Rozgic  Senior Applied Scientist, Speech
  Chao Wang     Senior Manager, Applied Science

Preventing Infant Vision Loss at Scale with Artificial Intelligence
  Pr3vent uses artificial intelligence for early detection of preventable vision loss in newborns and saves $1.5 million
  per visually impaired person. Learn about the solution that makes the screening routine widely accessible while put-
  ting ophthalmologists in the loop for diagnosis validation and supervision.
  Stepan Pushkarev     Co-Founder and CTO     Provectus

How Alexa Entity Resolution Provides Customers a Better Experience
  Alexa entity resolution leverages natural language interpretation and knowledge-graph techniques to better un-
  derstand subqueries embedded within customer requests. For example, “Alexa, play the Rocky theme song” gets
  translated to “Alexa, play Gonna Fly Now” by Bill Conti, which then gets resolved in various provider catalogs. Learn
  how to leverage this out-of-the-box functionality to provide a better customer experience.
  Yue Liu    Manager, Alexa AI - Natural Understanding
  Avnish Sikka   Sr. Manager, Alexa AI - Natural Understanding

Creating the Intelligent Asset: Fusing IoT, Robotics, and Artificial Intelligence
  What if you could learn more about your facility from your tablet than by walking around it yourself? Through 4D
  interactive virtual worlds, Woodside’s “Intelligent Asset” offers an immersive experience in which operators can
  explore their facility remotely in real time. Learn how Woodside, the leading energy provider in Australia, combined
  the latest AWS services including Amazon Kinesis Video Streams, Amazon SageMaker, AWS RoboMaker, and AWS
  IoT.
  Jason Crusan     Vice President of Technology   Woodside Energy

Why Evolved Conversational Artificial Intelligence for Alexa Matters to Customers and Developers
  An evolved conversational AI for Alexa brings a wave of new voice experiences that weren’t possible before. This
  session outlines opportunities for companies to reach new audiences and delight customers through unprecedented
  new experiences.
  Sanju Pancholi     Senior Product Manager, AI

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Understanding Customer Intent and Personalizing Shopping Experiences at Scale
  How do you understand millions of customers intents and help them choose the right product from hundreds of
  millions of items in real time? Learn how to solve this challenge by leveraging various machine-learning techniques
  including collaborative filtering, natural language processing, and probabilistic models to delight your customers
  and deliver long-term value to your business. You will also learn how Amazon’s Buy it Again system models tempo-
  ral dynamics in shopper behaviors to find the perfect timing for recommendations.
  Soo-Min Pantel      Senior Manager, Applied Science
Rethinking Recommendations: From Collaborative Filtering to Deep Learning
  Recommendations can be thought of as a learning problem, but the domain is challenging since product selection
  is large and the relevant products change quickly. This session will outline how Amazon is disrupting recommenda-
  tions with the latest deep learning research. Learn which aspects of deep learning are equally applicable to person-
  alization.
  Ben Allison     Principal Machine Learning Scientist

Distributed Artificial Intelligence: Alexa Living on the Edge
  Distributed edge learning, which leverages on-device computation for training models and centrally aggregated an-
  onymized updates, is a promising new approach capable of achieving customer-level personalization at scale while
  addressing privacy and trust concerns. Practitioners, employers, and users of AI should understand this new edge-
  first paradigm and how it will impact the discipline in the near future.
  Ariya Rastrow     Principal Applied Scientist, Alexa Speech

Applying Space-based Data and Machine Learning to the UN’s Sustainability Goals
  The United Nations has outlined 17 Sustainable Development Goals that address global challenges such as poverty,
  hunger, and health. While the goals are focused on life on Earth, space-based data and machine learning are yield-
  ing insights. Learn how a combination of analytics and satellite imagery are helping solve pressing problems.
  Dr. Shay Har-Noy      Vice President   Maxar Technologies

A Faster Path to Smart Device Development with No Cloud Required
  The Alexa Connect Kit (ACK) provides a quick and easy path for device makers to connect devices to Alexa at a hard-
  ware level without building cloud services or complex networking and security firmware. Learn about ACK and the
  technical details of how one of the first devices to use ACK was prototyped in just a few weeks.
  Ben McInnis      Lead, Alexa Connect Kit

Amazon Go: A Technology Deep Dive
  This technical session will outline the core technologies behind the custom-built Just Walk Out technology for Ama-
  zon Go. Learn about the algorithmic challenges in building a highly accurate customer-facing application using deep
  learning and computer vision, and the technical details of the high throughput services for Amazon Go that transfer
  gigabytes of video from stores to cloud systems.
  Ameet Vaswani       Senior Manager, Software Development
  Gerard Medioni      Director, Research
The Creative Side of Artificial Intelligence: Product Name Generation
  Can AI help name your product? This session will showcase a proposed solution that generates a large number of
  name candidates in a short time from a many-to-many long short-term memory (LSTM) network. You’ll learn how
  to prepare the data and build, train, and deploy a deep learning neural network in Keras and TensorFlow without
  writing a single line of code.
  Scott Fincher    Data Scientist   KNIME, Inc.

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Acoustic Event Detection with Alexa Guard
  Voice services like Alexa can use automatic speech recognition and natural language understanding to perform tasks
  on behalf of customers. What if Alexa understood more than just speech? This session will feature a case study of
  Alexa Guard, showcasing how AI can extend beyond speech to understand other sounds.
  Elly Chen     Principal Product Manager, Alexa Speech

Artificial Intelligence, Spatial Understanding, Robots, and the Smart Home
  Consumers are increasingly expecting connected products in their home to deliver easy-to-use and personalized
  experiences tailored to their home and activity. To deliver such a personalized experience, the smart home needs to
  intelligently coordinate diverse connected devices located throughout the home. This talk will focus on how robots
  operating in homes today are ideally positioned to enable this intelligence by providing a constantly updated under-
  standing of the physical layout of the home and the locations of each connected device within the space.
  Chris Jones     Chief Technology Officer   iRobot
Reinforcement Learning for Robots
  How do you train a team of robots to learn and work together? This is a fundamental challenge to making robots
  work in unfamiliar environments such as natural disaster areas in rescue and recovery. Hear how robotics researchers
  from MIT are focusing on reinforcement learning to tackle this problem.
  jonathan how      Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics   MIT

Predicting Weather to Save Energy Costs
  Learn how Kinect Energy Group uses advanced machine learning capabilities to predict electric spot prices for re-
  gional power markets using the Amazon SageMaker DeepAR time-series forecasting model, incorporating historical
  pricing and weather data to drive the machine learning models. Improved price predictions assist with increased
  trading volumes for forward pricing contracts.
  Andrew Stypa      Lead, AI/ML Business Analyst Kinect Energy Group
  Richard Scott     Global Marketing Director Kinect Energy Group

Mitigate Bias in Machine Learning Models
  Using real world examples, this session will explore how to understand, measure and systematically mitigate bias in
  machine learning models. Understanding these principles is an important part of building a machine learning strat-
  egy. This session will cover both the business and technical considerations.
  Stefano Soatto     Director of Applied Science

Helping Patients by Improving Data Exchange
  Change Healthcare is using AWS to accelerate data sharing across all stakeholders in healthcare, with the goal of im-
  proving the U.S. healthcare system and lowering costs. Change Healthcare will discuss a wide array of data exchang-
  es and how to be easily accessible to stakeholders.
  Adam Sullivan      Senior Director of Artificial Intelligence Change Healthcare
  John Tornblad      Enterprise Architect, AI Change Healthcare

Bringing Artificial Intelligence to Life with Robotics
  Robots are becoming prevalent in our lives, helping us carry out tedious housework, automate manufacturing, and
  research lunar landscapes. But these applications demand a high level of intelligence and autonomy. Attend this
  session to learn how AWS customers are developing, testing, simulating, and deploying intelligent robotics applica-
  tions at scale. Robot Care Systems will join us onstage to discuss how they are using AWS RoboMaker to enable the
  next generation of Lea, a robot walker that helps people live more independently.
  Gabriel A. D. Lopes    Control and Robotics Scientist   Robot Care Systems

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Enabling Sustainable Human Life in Space Using Artificial Intelligence
  Human settlement of space will pose one of the grandest challenges in history. We imagine entire communities
  living on the moon and beyond without depending on constant supervision or support from Earth. We’ll discuss the
  challenges for sustainable life in space, and our plan to use artificial intelligence to ensure the safety and wellbeing
  of our first space settlers.
  Dr. Natalie Rens      CEO & Founder   Astreia

Futuring the Farm to Improve Crop Health
  One third of all food produced globally is lost or wasted before it is consumed, according the Food and Agriculture
  Organization of the United Nations (FAO). This equals a loss of $750 billion annually. With AWS IoT, Bayer Crop Sci-
  ence can prevent process loss in real time and use real-time data collection and analysis for its global seed business,
  collecting an average of one million traits per day during planting or harvest season.
  Peri Subrahmanya    Product Manager, ioT Bayer Crop Science
  Craig Williams  Principal Solution Architect

Situational Design: Making the Shift to Alexa and Ambient Computing
  Bringing your experiences and your brand to new AI-based UIs like Alexa and ambient computing will require new
  techniques for your design team. In this session, we will expose the pitfalls of porting web and mobile experiences
  to new UIs, and discuss the design patterns that will enable you to delight your customers.
  Paul Cutsinger      Head of VUI Education, Alexa

Year 2030: Emerging Technologies and the Future of Robotics
  As business and technology leaders, we must move from observers to disruptors. We need to understand the tech-
  nologies shaping the future, and the pace at which that future is developing. In this session, we’ll look ahead at
  impending disruptions, consider the role robotics will play, and show how risk and speed should be our new norms.
  Jon Battles      Director, Robotics

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