11 AI leaders from Amsterdam to watch in 2021

Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to redefine the technology of the future such as self-driving cars and healthcare robots. Though the AI ecosystem is young, many future-proof connections are being built in the Dutch capital. It won’t be an exaggeration to see Amsterdam be a world leader in this industry in the coming years.

Already, the two major Amsterdam universities conduct a joint AI masters program. Besides this, the Amsterdam School of Data Science, which is a collaboration between four of the research and applied sciences universities in the city, offers over 250 data science-driven programmes.

Apparently, the city is one of the best places for fresh talent as well as prominent pioneers in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Therefore, Silicon Canals has listed notable AI leaders in Amsterdam to watch out for in 2021. These AI leaders have contributed immensely to the further progress of the city’s achievement in this field.

Sennay Ghebreab

Sennay Ghebreab is a Professor of Socially-Intelligent AI, Program Director MSc Data Science & Information Systems, and Scientific Director of the Civic AI Lab (CAIL). The lab is a collaboration between the Ministry of Interior Affairs, City of Amsterdam, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and the University of Amsterdam. Civic AI lab develops Artificial Intelligence technology that will increase equal opportunity in various fields including education, welfare, environment, mobility and health.

Last year, on the 10th of December, the official launch event for CAIL happened internationally online.

Dennis Tan

Dennis Tan has been an entrepreneur since the age of 15. He has participated in the creation of more than 25 companies and serves as an international public speaker. Tan is the co-founder of multiple entrepreneurial groups, including Dutch Entrepreneurial Communities, and Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurs Student Association. Also, he is the founder of Dashmote, a Rotterdam-based startup.

“Happy and excited to be living in a time-period & world in which there are so many opportunities to make a positive impact on other people their lives. I hope to encourage as many people to use the low entry barriers in our time (thanks to tech and other innovations) to their advantage and to get the best out of themselves!” says Tan in his LinkedIn profile.

Jeanet Lin

Jeanet Lin, the founder of Dutch startup Food for Gut, which won the ‘The Ultimate Game Changer’ award in Women in AI’s WaiACCELERATE pitch finals. The startup offers an AI-powered digital health app with a data-driven solution. Artificial Intelligence is utilised by the company for analytics and to provide personalised recommendations in real-time.

Theo Gevers

Theo Gevers is a professor of computer vision at the University of Amsterdam. He is director of the Computer Vision Lab and co-director of the Atlas Lab in Amsterdam. His research area is artificial intelligence with the focus on computer vision and deep learning, and in particular image processing, 3D (object) understanding and human-behaviour analysis with industrial and societal applications in fashion/retail, healthcare, real estate, smart cities, and automotive.

Gevers is also the co-founder of 3DUniversum Sightcorp and ScanM. He has published over 200+ papers and three books. He is an organiser, general chair, and program committee member of a various number of conferences, and an invited speaker at major conferences. He is actively involved in media and dissemination activities.

Dyme

Amsterdam-based fintech startup Dyme combines financial data with the latest machine learning technologies to offer its users a state-of-the-art solution for subscription management. It lets users connect their bank accounts and provides a clear overview of their finances. The app automatically detects subscriptions and hidden fees and enables users to cancel or change any contract with a single click. This platform was founded by David Knap, David Schogt, Joran Iedema, Wouter Florijn in 2018.

Iedema presented Amsterdam-based Dyme in the NPO1 program in Dragons’ Den. And certainly not without success! After Shawn Harris, Pieter Schoen, Won Yip, Michel Perridon and Nikkie Plessen expressed their interest, Pieter Schoen and Michel Perridon proposed €750K for 50.01 per cent of the shares during the TV programme – Dragon’s Den.

Evgenia Logunova

Evgenia Logunova is a new-edge tech-inspired professional with over 15 years of experience in innovation, business strategy, marketing, and stakeholder engagement, among others. She claims to be a big fan of Artificial Intelligence, Data, Cloud, and Internet of Things and has worked at both startups and globally established organisations, including IBM, Ingenico ePayments (now Worldline), Alcatel-Lucent (now Nokia), Virtual Affairs, Linxdatacenter, Paazl, and other companies. She currently leads the Dutch chapter of Women in AI, a nonprofit global do-tank on a mission to bridge the gender gap in the industry for a gender-inclusive, responsible AI. Logunova is also the founder of Evenness, an Amsterdam-based consulting firm. ​

Jacco van Ossebrugge

Jacco van Ossenbruggen is leading the Human-Centered Data Analytics group at
Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam, and the User Centric Data Science research group at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is also one of the Scientific Co-directors of Civic AI Lab (CAIL).

Ossenbruggen is involved in the assessment of data quality in large, heterogeneous research datasets in the digital humanities, large scale web data integration and linking in cultural heritage and other data rich domains. He completed his PhD in computer science from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2001.

Elvire Jaspers

Elvire Jaspers is the co-founder and CEO of WeAreBrain, a multinational technology company with headquarters in Amsterdam and Kiev. She was featured on the Netherlands Women to Watch list twice. She is one of the most influential leaders in the technology development of the Netherlands in 2020.

She has also been instrumental in creating a number of businesses including clevergig – a startup focused on staffing the up and coming Gig economy.

Sindi Shkodrani

Sindi Shkodrani is the Machine Learning/ Computer Vision Engineer – Autonomous Driving R&D – for TomTom. She is the brains behind developing TomTom‘s tech for autonomous driving cars. She completed her M.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Amsterdam in 2017. Furthermore, Shkodrani is a member of Women in AI Netherlands since late 2018.

Marion Mulder

Marion Mulder has been working in the field of digital technology for over two decades. Initially, she started with building websites, moved into intranet management and implemented digital workplaces, followed by building apps and actively learning about chatbots, virtual assistants, conversational user interfaces, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and ambient technology. Mulder is an ethical AI expert from digital and voice assistants to nonbinary people-inclusive algorithms. Mulder is also the owner of MuldiMedia, a Haarlem company.

Gabrielle Davelaar

Gabrielle Davelaar, an AI Technical Specialist at Microsoft, helps companies with their digital AI transformation suitable for scaling responsibly and transparently. She saved her son’s life with the power of Data Science by finding the right medicine by combining options. After discovery, Gabrielle Davelaar advises it to the parents of kids with a rare form of epilepsy.