Tag: AI

Categories
Industrial & Service Transformation Latest news

From lab to startup: legAI

legAI.

Meeting compliance requirements involves wasting many hours doing mundane tasks that could be automated.

The University of Luxembourg’s spin-off legAI takes care of such tasks in just one second so that lawyers can spend more time on what really matters.

By combining automatic reasoning, data analysis and legal expertise, computer scientists from the University of Luxembourg have developed a solution that automates critical tasks so that companies can focus on decision-making.

Automating legal decision-making

Tomer Libal is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Luxembourg. His research is focused on Automated Deduction and especially on applications to law. He recently created the legAI application to make the data protection risk assessment process easier.

When a company has invested in a new human resources management system, for example, making sure it is legally compliant is often a complex task and requires a legal expert. LegAI takes care of such tasks in just one second.

“Our tool is asking you different questions which lead you towards the answer, so you can make the decision and take the responsibility. The idea is to do all the bureaucracy and leave you with the decision process.”

Tomer Libal @legAI

From project to proof of concept

Going beyond the creation of the application, Tomer Libal has submitted a Proof-of-Concept project with the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR). Indeed, the researcher has developed an easy-to-use product to give companies a much better legal understanding.

In the process, the postdoc researcher is seeking to get a closer view on business’ needs.

Tomer Libal plans to present his first prototype in 2022 and develop his own company in 2023.

More about Tomer Libal

Latest
articles

From lab to startup

From lab to startup: digitalUs

Whenever you go online, you leave a digital trail of information footprint. It says where you’ve been, how long you’ve been there and what you’ve been doing. Whenever you sign up for an online service, send an email and […]

Categories
Industrial & Service Transformation Latest news Sustainable & Responsible Development

Meet Luxembourg digital twin

Digital Twin.

A digital twin is a virtual representation of physical systems, e.g. traffic, water or air, and physical assets like buildings or resources, that can make simulations, tests and predictions of planned actions in near real-time.

What’s a digital twin for? How such a project further supports Luxembourg in being a hub of excellence in terms of digital development?

Researchers from Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) in close cooperation with the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) at the University of Luxembourg and the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) are working on a digital twin of Luxembourg. This digital replica is set to be the world’s first-ever nationwide platform.

Such an innovation would propel Luxembourg to becoming a centre of excellence in digital development, making it even more attractive to international industrial companies willing to introduce their products and services to the European market and to academic players looking for a digital-friendly environment to develop research and innovation.

A digital twin to build a more resilient society

Digital twins have become important tools for improving our understanding of complex systems and helping us make informed decisions.

While digital replicas are commonly used to represent a car, a tunnel or an entire factory, Luxembourg researchers are building a nation twin.

This digital replica would be a virtual representation of physical systems and physical assets in Luxembourg that can make simulations, tests and predictions of planned actions almost in real time.

Luxembourg digital doppelgänger will help to build a more resilient society that can bring better understanding of the country and predict how it will behave during future crises.

An innovative solution to respond to crises

Luxembourg’s digital twin is proving to be a useful tool for managing health or environmental crisis situations.

During the pandemic, researchers set up a visualisation board as a “window” on the digital twin to help manage the crisis. Basically, they used it to visualise the impact of policy decisions – closing schools, reopening restaurants, keeping borders open, etc. – on the expected number of infections and hospitalisations as well as on different socio-economic variables.

The digital replica also spans other issues, including energy. In this case the solution finds its way into how to make the grid safer and more resilient.

A major challenge is to develop analytical methods that can handle the huge amount of data involved. As such, explainable and reliable AI would be helpful.

NATIONTWIN (Responsible AI for a NATION-wide and privacy preserving Digital TWIN) is supported by the FNR’s INITIATE programme.

More about Luxembourg Digital Twin

Similar articles

From lab to startup: legAI

By combining automatic reasoning, data analysis and legal expertise, computer scientists from the University of Luxembourg have developed a solution that automates critical tasks so that companies can focus on decision-making. Automating legal decision-making Tomer Libal is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Luxembourg. His research is focused…

Keep reading

In conversation with our young researchers: Dr Alexander Steen

The ubiquity of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the fact that no scientist can be an expert in every field means AI is an interdisciplinary field at heart. Computational logician and AI researcher Postdoc Dr Alexander Steen, has chosen Luxembourg to run his research projects. The expertise in the research group Dr Steen is associated with…

Keep reading
Categories
Industrial & Service Transformation Latest news

From lab to startup: digitalUs

digitalUs.

While most Know Your Customer (KYC) solutions operate under a proprietary data silo mode, digitalUs has developed solutions dedicated to compliance officers to launch searches upon request with no data being stored locally. Discover how the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust’s spin-off to be is moving out of the lab.

Whenever you go online, you leave a digital trail of information footprint. It says where you’ve been, how long you’ve been there and what you’ve been doing. Whenever you sign up for an online service, send an email and upload your photo, this personal information is accessible and therefore adds to your digital footprint.

From this initial observation, Beltran Borja Fiz Pontiveros developed a proof of concept, backed by Luxembourg National Research Fund’s JUMP programme, along with business partners, to test AI-based technology to reliably match various public data-sources for any given person to compute a comprehensible digital profile. digitalUs is set to empower compliance officers with additional risk intelligence data making the most of the wealth of data that is publicly available to produce a unified digital footprint.

From the idea to the proof of concept

After Beltran Borja Fiz Pontiveros completed his PhD at the University of Luxembourg, he started working on a project that aimed to de-anonymise online users by trying to link information they made publicly available to other media sources.

“The original idea emerged with a group of friends who were using social media and apps. We were all very surprised to see how much data we could find on each other. Combining all digital sources, we were able to build an entire profile using our digital footprint.“

“I was working on a project that aimed to de-anonymise online users by trying to link information they made publicly available to other media sources. It soon became clear that this linking process could be applied to a plethora of sources, from social media and other public sharing platforms to obscure forums and leaked information.“

— Beltran Borja Fiz Pontiveros

As a postdoc, Beltran was involved in a Horizon 2020 project about regulatory working with compliance officers. Being faced with KYC procedures, he realised that compliance officers met the same data collection challenges.

The researcher applied to FNR’s JUMP programme to create a proof of concept testing an AI-based technology to reliably match various public data-sources for any given person to compute a comprehensible digital profile. Soon, he realised that combining data sources for one unique individual allows to create a public digital profile that includes commercially exploitable information.

By starting with a small amount of data on a user, and through multiple search and match iterations, we were able to augment the initial data to generate a user’s online public footprint.

Beltran Borja Fiz Pontiveros

digitalUs to empower compliance officers

The digitalUs technology developed at the SnT provides a solution to automate, and significantly speed-up the background screening process of individuals. It relies on a novel methodology to match the same entity across multiple publicly data sources.

digitalUs empowers compliance officers with additional risk intelligence data. We are automating the entire process of searching online, putting data together and therefore reducing the manual work.

Beltran Borja Fiz Pontiveros

GDPR by design, digitalUs can launch searches upon request and no data is stored locally. The solution is powered by unique technology, tested during the research phase, that taps into the wealth of data, publicly available, including watch lists, business registers, social media and much more, to produce a unified digital footprint.

digitalUs is co-founded by a team from the University of Luxembourg.

Meet the digitalUs team

Beltran Borja Fiz Pontiveros

Co-Founder and CEO

Beltran Borja Fiz Pontiveros is co-founder and CEO of digitalUs.

Georgios Varisteas

Co-Founder and CTO 

Georgios Varisteas is a postdoc with a decade-long industry experience as a software engineer in tech giants such as Microsoft and IBM. He provides the expertise and excellence required to design, build and scale the digitalUs service.

Oxana Turtureanu

Co-Founder and CPO

Oxana Turtureanu, fresh out of the innovation and entrepreneurship master programme and with five years of experience in compliance in the banking sector, is very familiar with the customer pain points and ensures our product is polished to meet the customer needs.

Raphaël Frank

Co-Founder

Raphaël Frank, co-founder of the first spin-off at SnT, provides the experience and know-how of launching a successful product in Luxembourg.

digitalUs is set to be the next SnT’s spin-off, being launched in October 2021

More about digitalUs

Latest
articles

Categories
Industrial & Service Transformation Inside Research Luxembourg Latest news

In conversation with our young researchers: Dr Alexander Steen

The ubiquity of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the fact that no scientist can be an expert in every field means AI is an interdisciplinary field at heart. Computational logician and AI researcher Postdoc Dr Alexander Steen, has chosen Luxembourg to run his research projects.

The expertise in the research group Dr Steen is associated with reflects interdisciplinarity. Indeed, it brings together Lawyers, Logicians, Mathematicians, Computer Scientists, Philosophers and Engineers – supplemented by expertise in the other faculties.

Making Universality happen

Technological progress in AI affects us all. Indeed, researchers from numerous scientific fields are working on the best way to bring AI forward. It includes the study of systems able to autonomously reason over arguments – calculators for philosophical, ethical or legal debates.

Dr Steen studies the theoretical and practical aspects on how to automate and implement logical reasoning. His focus is on interdisciplinary contexts: normative and legal decision-making and philosophical arguments.

According to Dr Alexander Steen, who defines his work by its universality: “Logic is everywhere around us, in different forms and shapes. Automated reasoning has been around since the very beginning of AI research[…] Modern logic has become more diverse and inclusive: We now try to capture intuitive notions of philosophical, moral, legal and common-sense reasoning – which is in a sense much harder than purely mathematical logic – and to let a machine autonomously reason about these aspects.” 

The underlying idea, Alexander explains, is to provide quite general means for AI-assisted reasoning. It is also about simulating domain specific requirements within that framework. This way, e.g. ethical and legal discourses can be made explicit and addressed by autonomous systems. As such, it contributes to explainable and transparent AI systems that we urgently need.

Why Luxembourg as a research destination?

“Luxembourg lies in the heart of Europe, with a unique mixture of people within and outside of the University. I’ve never seen a research group like the one I am associated with now: Lawyers, Logicians, Mathematicians, Computer Scientists, Philosophers and Engineers – with even more expertise in the other faculties. ”

— Alexander Steen, Postdoc Researcher, University of Luxembourg, and Principal Investigator of the CORE Junior project ‘Automated Reasoning with Legal Entities (AuReLeE)

Read more about the Individual and Collective Reasoning Group of University of Luxembourg.

Extracts from Spotlight on Young Researchers: AI for ethical and legal debates