Today we’d like to introduce you to Catherine Havasi.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Our roots go back to the late 1990s when I was part of Marvin Minsky’s Society of Mind group at MIT. We used an early method of crowdsourcing to teach a computer how to understand common sense or world knowledge from humans.
We took the accumulated crowdsourced data and built an open source resource called ConceptNet that helps computers learn the connections between words as people do.
Now this network has learned over 28 million statements or facts available in 70 different languages. It’s important to capture information across cultures to understand the differing nuances in them, which affect how language is interpreted. For example, the connotations surrounding how a person thinks of a cat in one part of the world versus another can vary greatly. Is that cat considered cute or dirty? Evil or cuddly?
ConceptNet is the technology behind Luminoso’s AI-based natural language understanding software. Today we offer two solutions. Analytics analyses large batches of unstructured text-based data. Compass also looks at unstructured data but in real time.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
When we started back in 2010, Luminoso was a consulting company, but we quickly realized that wasn’t a scalable way to share our resources. Instead we moved towards offering software to our customers. The transition from selling mostly services to packaging usable products was a process that required much strategizing and problem solving. But just like our machines, we love learning at Luminoso.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Luminoso Technologies – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Luminoso is a leading natural language understanding company that enables our customers to rapidly discover value in their unstructured text data. Our artificial intelligence-based software uniquely produces an accurate, unbiased, real-time understanding of what people are saying. These insights are used to increase marketing performance and build better customer experiences.
The software natively applies NLP in 13 languages. Analyses are conducted without having to translate the data. In these different tongues, our software can understand creative language (e.g. nuance, slang, topics) and emotional or passionate expression.
We can handle complex discussions like the taste of a chocolate bar or sounds a car makes when it needs to be brought to the dealer. The technology understands the meaning behind words and learns new lingo, adjusting its knowledge automatically using machine learning and a large or small amount of example text.
Our technology is based on artificial intelligence – specifically word embeddings, natural language processing, and machine learning – rather than on ontologies or long lists of keywords. Using these AI-based techniques means that it takes less time, is less biased, and is more scalable than historical approaches.
Contact Info:
- Address: Luminoso Headquarters:
675 Massachusetts Avenue,
Sixth Floor
Cambridge, MA 02139 - Website: https://luminoso.com
- Phone: (617) 682-9056
- Email: press@luminoso.com
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/LuminosoInsight/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/LuminosoInsight
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/2941835/
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