Insights. Ideas. Inspiration.
Recent Articles and Press
Is the GenAI out of the bottle?
GenAI can be funny Alexa, are you blue?" Alexa: Only my light ring... Only my light ring. GenAI can be productive "Translate 'Where is the restroom?' into Spanish. GenAI can be savage Siri, what's zero divided by zero?" Siri: "Imagine that you have zero cookies...
#OnTheShouldersOf Arthur Samuel
In this week’s episode, we delve into the legacy of Arthur Samuel, an icon whose contributions continue to shape the landscape of artificial intelligence. Samuel, a visionary ahead of his time, laid the groundwork for modern AI with his groundbreaking work in the...
Crayon Data on Financial Times ‘ High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2024 list
Date: March 13, 2024 Source: Financial Times Guess who has Crayon in their name and made it to Financial Times' list of High-Growth companies in the APAC region - It's us, Crayon Data! How do we do it? The mantra is "A great product coupled with great talent will not...
Aarti Ramakrishnan on the StrongHer list of 100 global women trailblazers 2024
Source: StrongHer Success and recognition are inevitable for those with an insatiable hunger to achieve. StrongHer Ventures, a venture capital firm with a focus on financing women-led projects, has published a list of 100 Women Trailblazers who embody this trait. And...
Crayon Data handles data with art
Date: April 4, 2024 Source: The Business Times When talent meets hard work, success is inevitable. MORE than a decade ago, Suresh Shankar saw the potential of Big Data, and observed that companies had a growing interest in harnessing such data for their business...
Karunakaran Neelakandan on Indian Startup Times’ list of visionaries at the helm of Artificial Intelligence
Date: March 29, 2024 Source: Indian Startup Times "Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality", said the American author Warren Bennis. If there's someone who epitomizes this quote best, it'd certainly be Karunakaran Neelakandan, our VP of...
Natural Language Processing Market Propelled by Rising Adoption of Chatbots and Need for Efficient Data Processing
Date: March 12, 2024 Source: WhaTech In this age of AI, NLP (Natural Language Processing) is one of the most-sought after capabilities by enterprises. With their to ability to efficiently analyze unstructured data, their popularity is not just a trend, but is here to...
#OnTheShouldersOf Herbert Simon
Imagine a polymath of the modern era, whose intellect seemed to transcend disciplinary boundaries, leaving indelible marks in fields as diverse as political science, computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. That's Herbert Alexander Simon for you – a true...
#OnTheShouldersOf Stuart Russell
Stuart J. Russell is a renowned computer scientist and a prominent figure in artificial intelligence. Russell's academic career has been closely tied to the University of California, Berkeley, where he held various positions before becoming a Professor of Computer...
#TheAIAlphabet: Z for Zero-Shot Learning
Zero-shot learning (ZSL) is an innovative approach in the realm of artificial intelligence that aims to teach machines to recognize and understand objects or concepts they have never encountered during their training phase. Unlike traditional machine learning models...
#OnTheShouldersOf Pushmeet Kohli
Pushmeet Kohli, a prominent figure in the realm of computer science, stands out for his influential contributions to artificial intelligence and machine learning. As a computer scientist of Indian origin, Kohli has made significant strides in shaping the landscape of...
#TheAIAlphabet: Y for YOLO
Imagine you're at a massive art gallery filled with countless paintings, each depicting a variety of scenes and objects. Your task is to quickly identify and label everything in the artwork. Traditionally, this process involves meticulously examining each painting in...
#TheAIAlphabet: X for Xception
Xception, short for "Extreme Inception," is an advanced convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of deep learning models in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Developed as an evolution of the...
#TheAIAlphabet: W for Winograd Schema Challenge
The Winograd Schema Challenge (WSC) is a linguistic benchmark designed to assess the capability of artificial intelligence systems to understand and generate human-like language in a nuanced context. Named after Terry Winograd, a computer scientist and professor, the...
#TheAIAlphabet: V for Vector Quantized VAE-2 (VQ VAE 2)
Vector Quantized Variational Autoencoder 2 (VQ VAE 2) is an advanced machine learning technique that combines the power of variational autoencoders (VAEs) with vector quantization to enhance the representation and generation of complex data. Let's break down this...
Fintech and payments trends to watch out for in 2024
Payments as a market is undergoing massive changes. As customer preferences evolve, so are the technologies they use. Globally, there are a number of key drivers behind the changes we’re seeing today. According to the ‘Top 10 Fintech and Payments Trends 2024’ Report...
AI Guardians of the digital wallet galaxy
In a world where your coffee, groceries, and even your taxi rides can be paid for with a tap of your phone, digital wallets have become the sleek, convenient sidekicks to our daily lives. But as with any great innovation, there's a shadow side: fraudsters are eager to...
Unlocking the Personalization Promise: What Banks Must Deliver
In today's world, where every customer interaction is a potential goldmine, banks are scrambling to deliver personalized experiences that set them apart from the competition. But what does personalization really mean in the context of banking? It's about understanding...
#OnTheShouldersOf Judea Pearl
Judea Pearl is an Israeli-American computer scientist best known for his groundbreaking work in causal reasoning and Bayesian networks. These networks have been instrumental in various fields, including medicine, economics, and engineering, allowing researchers to...
#OnTheShouldersOf Yoshua Bengio
Yoshua Bengio is a Canadian computer scientist who has made significant contributions to the advancement of machine learning and neural networks, which have profoundly impacted various industries and technologies. Bengio has received numerous accolades for his work,...
#TheAIAlphabet: U for Unawareness
Imagine you're a skilled chess player, effortlessly anticipating your opponent's moves and maneuvering your pieces to victory. But what if you were suddenly blindfolded? Your once-sharp strategy would crumble, your moves guided by guesswork and uncertainty. This...
Combating Debanking in the Age of AI
Imagine coming back from a tiring day at work, eager to unwind and prepare for the weekend. You open your email, only to find a notification from your bank: your account has been closed without any warning. A wave of panic washes over you. How will you pay your bills?...
#TheAIAlphabet: T for Turing Olympics
The question of artificial intelligence (AI) has long intrigued humanity, with the idea of machines capable of thought and consciousness sparking both fascination and apprehension. One of the most prominent methods of evaluating AI progress has been the Turing Test,...
AI in the sky: Transforming travel experiences
“The ultimate travel agent”. That’s the vision that Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has for the vacation and short-term rental platform. One of the many steps to unlocking that vision is the sustained and strategic use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). And their first...
Why ‘AI’ is the right choice for Word of the Year 2023
Two letters. But what an impact they have had this year! Little wonder then that Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has been chosen as the ‘Word of the Year 2023’ by the Collins Dictionary. This is not surprising for an AI-led company like Crayon Data. In fact, it was...
#OnTheShouldersOf Claude Shannon
Claude Shannon was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer who made groundbreaking contributions to various fields of science and technology. He is regarded as the "Father of Information Theory" due to his pioneering work in digital...
#TheAIAlphabet: S for Stochastic Parrots
Imagine a parrot that can mimic human speech perfectly, but has no idea what it's saying. That's the idea behind a "stochastic parrot," a term coined by researchers to describe large language models (LLMs) that are good at generating human-like text, but don't...
Transforming Finance: The Machine Learning Revolution
In the dynamic landscape of technological innovation, one term is making waves across industries—Machine Learning (ML). As a subset of artificial intelligence (AI), ML is redefining the way we approach problem-solving, and the financial sector is no exception. Here,...
#TheAIAlphabet: R for Responsible AI
Imagine a world where every step you take, every word you utter, every choice you make is carefully observed, recorded, and analyzed by an invisible entity. This entity, let's call it "The Observer," uses this vast trove of data to predict your future behavior,...
Banking the Unbanked: The Path to Financial Inclusion in Africa
The inception of FinTechs promoting financial inclusion in Africa can be traced back to Kenya in 2007. Safaricom, a Kenyan mobile network operator affiliated with Vodafone, observed customers using prepaid airtime as a form of currency. This observation led to the...
#OnTheShouldersOf Sebastian Thrun
Sebastian Thrun is a prominent figure in the field of artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous systems. Thrun's career took off when he joined Stanford University as a professor in the Department of Computer Science. Here, he became known for his...
#TheAIAlphabet: Q for Quantum AI
“Why was the quantum AI always so calm and composed? Because it never had any bits of anxiety, only qubits of serenity!” AI is revolutionizing our world by creating machines and systems that mimic human intelligence and beyond. However, the increasing complexity and...
Is Edge AI the next big artificial intelligence trend?
As technology evolves on a day-to-day basis, it combines multiple facets to create ingenious results. We’re seeing Generative AI being incorporated into wearables. IoT is converging with machine learning and AI. As is edge computing. In fact, multiple predictions...
#OnTheShouldersOf Fei-Fei Li
Fei-Fei Li is renowned for her groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision. Her work in AI encompasses various contributions, from foundational datasets and algorithms in computer vision to pushing the boundaries of deep learning's...
#TheAIAlphabet: P for Pre-Trained Models
You know how you'd sometimes get stuck on a tough level while playing a video game? And desperately wished for a magical power-up? Well, pre-trained models are like those power-ups, but for computers and artificial intelligence! So, here's the scoop in simple terms:...
#OnTheShouldersOf Geoffrey Hinton
Geoffrey Everest Hinton is a pioneering figure in artificial intelligence and deep learning. Hinton's work has profoundly impacted the development of neural networks and machine learning, making him one of the most influential figures in the AI community. Hinton's...
#TheAIAlphabet: O for Orthogonality Thesis
The Orthogonality Thesis is the idea that when it comes to advanced AI, two important things - intelligence and motivation - can work independently of each other. In simpler terms, you can have a super-smart AI that's really good at doing things, but it might not...
How legalese is getting a Gen AI-powered makeover in the banking world
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a game-changer across various industries, and the legal and contracting domain is no exception. Traditionally, the legal sector has been notorious for its heaps of paperwork, time-consuming research, and expensive legal fees. AI...
Travel Marketplace-as-a-Service (MaaS): The magic of maya.ai for the holiday season
‘Tis (almost) the season to be jolly... And travel! Customers are busy making plans for the holidays. This includes booking tickets, making hotel reservations, and shopping up a storm. At the heart of this spending spree is the ever-present artificial intelligence...
#OnTheShouldersOf Raj Reddy
Meet the brilliant mind who is often regarded as the Father of Indian AI. Raj Reddy was born in Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, India, in 1937. He studied civil engineering at the College of Engineering Guindy, Chennai. After a master's degree from the...
#TheAIAlphabet: N for Neurosymbolic Learning
How do you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? In front of you, you see bread, peanut butter, and jelly. You know what to do. But how do you know what to do next? To put it simply, your brain combines the knowledge of what each ingredient is and how they...
How Explainable AI (XAI) is revolutionizing fintech
In the ever-evolving world of fintech, where algorithms help make critical financial decisions, a new player has emerged. Explainable AI (XAI) has evolved beyond the realm of helping creators and users of AI models understand how these models make decisions. In...
Marketplace-as-a-Service: The key to accelerating banking revenue
From digital wallets to contactless payments, the banking sector is constantly transforming. And the focus has been on creating customer experiences that make a difference to the bank’s bottom line. The most effective way to do this: a marketplace. Many banks...
#OnTheShouldersOf Demis Hassabis
Demis Hassabis is a British artificial intelligence researcher and entrepreneur, a name synonymous with the cutting-edge advancement of artificial intelligence. He is best known as the co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, a British AI company acquired by Google in 2014. He...
#TheAIAlphabet: M for Machine Consciousness
Consciousness is the awareness of one's own existence and surroundings. It is a complex phenomenon that is not fully understood, even in humans. So how can we tell if a machine is conscious? There is no definitive answer to this question. But one way to think about it...
#TheAIAlphabet: L for Long Short Term Memory (LSTM)
How does a restaurant server remember all the orders their customers have placed? They have a short-term memory, which can only hold a limited amount of information for a short period of time. So, if a customer places a complex order, they might have to write it down...
#OnTheShouldersOf Richard Sutton
Richard Sutton is a Canadian computer scientist and a prominent figure in the field of artificial intelligence, specifically in the field of reinforcement learning. A sub field of machine learning, reinforcement learning focuses on training agents to make sequential...
#TheAIAlphabet: K for Kalman Filtering
You're in a crowded room, trying to listen to someone who is speaking softly. The surrounding chatter makes it hard to hear clearly. This is similar to dealing with noisy data. Kalman Filtering steps in like a noise-canceling headset, filtering out the distracting...
A one-size-fits-all solution is unlikely to apply to hybrid work
Date: September 12, 2023 Source: Deccan Herald Many companies have embraced hybrid work as the most viable work arrangement to even out the pros and cons. Though children have been herded back to schools for in-person learning, the world of work has continued to...
#OnTheShoulderOf Cynthia Breazeal
Cynthia Breazeal is an American robotic scientist, entrepreneur, and researcher known for her work in social robotics. She focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence, robotics, and human-computer interaction. She is a professor at MIT, where she founded...
Recent Articles and Press
Is the GenAI out of the bottle?
GenAI can be funny Alexa, are you blue?" Alexa: Only my light ring... Only my light ring. GenAI can be productive "Translate 'Where is the restroom?' into Spanish. GenAI can be savage Siri, what's zero divided by zero?" Siri: "Imagine that you have zero cookies...
#OnTheShouldersOf Arthur Samuel
In this week’s episode, we delve into the legacy of Arthur Samuel, an icon whose contributions continue to shape the landscape of artificial intelligence. Samuel, a visionary ahead of his time, laid the groundwork for modern AI with his groundbreaking work in the...
Crayon Data on Financial Times ‘ High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2024 list
Date: March 13, 2024 Source: Financial Times Guess who has Crayon in their name and made it to Financial Times' list of High-Growth companies in the APAC region - It's us, Crayon Data! How do we do it? The mantra is "A great product coupled with great talent will not...
Aarti Ramakrishnan on the StrongHer list of 100 global women trailblazers 2024
Source: StrongHer Success and recognition are inevitable for those with an insatiable hunger to achieve. StrongHer Ventures, a venture capital firm with a focus on financing women-led projects, has published a list of 100 Women Trailblazers who embody this trait. And...
Crayon Data handles data with art
Date: April 4, 2024 Source: The Business Times When talent meets hard work, success is inevitable. MORE than a decade ago, Suresh Shankar saw the potential of Big Data, and observed that companies had a growing interest in harnessing such data for their business...
Karunakaran Neelakandan on Indian Startup Times’ list of visionaries at the helm of Artificial Intelligence
Date: March 29, 2024 Source: Indian Startup Times "Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality", said the American author Warren Bennis. If there's someone who epitomizes this quote best, it'd certainly be Karunakaran Neelakandan, our VP of...
Natural Language Processing Market Propelled by Rising Adoption of Chatbots and Need for Efficient Data Processing
Date: March 12, 2024 Source: WhaTech In this age of AI, NLP (Natural Language Processing) is one of the most-sought after capabilities by enterprises. With their to ability to efficiently analyze unstructured data, their popularity is not just a trend, but is here to...
#OnTheShouldersOf Herbert Simon
Imagine a polymath of the modern era, whose intellect seemed to transcend disciplinary boundaries, leaving indelible marks in fields as diverse as political science, computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. That's Herbert Alexander Simon for you – a true...
#OnTheShouldersOf Stuart Russell
Stuart J. Russell is a renowned computer scientist and a prominent figure in artificial intelligence. Russell's academic career has been closely tied to the University of California, Berkeley, where he held various positions before becoming a Professor of Computer...
#TheAIAlphabet: Z for Zero-Shot Learning
Zero-shot learning (ZSL) is an innovative approach in the realm of artificial intelligence that aims to teach machines to recognize and understand objects or concepts they have never encountered during their training phase. Unlike traditional machine learning models...
#OnTheShouldersOf Pushmeet Kohli
Pushmeet Kohli, a prominent figure in the realm of computer science, stands out for his influential contributions to artificial intelligence and machine learning. As a computer scientist of Indian origin, Kohli has made significant strides in shaping the landscape of...
#TheAIAlphabet: Y for YOLO
Imagine you're at a massive art gallery filled with countless paintings, each depicting a variety of scenes and objects. Your task is to quickly identify and label everything in the artwork. Traditionally, this process involves meticulously examining each painting in...
#TheAIAlphabet: X for Xception
Xception, short for "Extreme Inception," is an advanced convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of deep learning models in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Developed as an evolution of the...
#TheAIAlphabet: W for Winograd Schema Challenge
The Winograd Schema Challenge (WSC) is a linguistic benchmark designed to assess the capability of artificial intelligence systems to understand and generate human-like language in a nuanced context. Named after Terry Winograd, a computer scientist and professor, the...
#TheAIAlphabet: V for Vector Quantized VAE-2 (VQ VAE 2)
Vector Quantized Variational Autoencoder 2 (VQ VAE 2) is an advanced machine learning technique that combines the power of variational autoencoders (VAEs) with vector quantization to enhance the representation and generation of complex data. Let's break down this...
Fintech and payments trends to watch out for in 2024
Payments as a market is undergoing massive changes. As customer preferences evolve, so are the technologies they use. Globally, there are a number of key drivers behind the changes we’re seeing today. According to the ‘Top 10 Fintech and Payments Trends 2024’ Report...
AI Guardians of the digital wallet galaxy
In a world where your coffee, groceries, and even your taxi rides can be paid for with a tap of your phone, digital wallets have become the sleek, convenient sidekicks to our daily lives. But as with any great innovation, there's a shadow side: fraudsters are eager to...
Unlocking the Personalization Promise: What Banks Must Deliver
In today's world, where every customer interaction is a potential goldmine, banks are scrambling to deliver personalized experiences that set them apart from the competition. But what does personalization really mean in the context of banking? It's about understanding...
#OnTheShouldersOf Judea Pearl
Judea Pearl is an Israeli-American computer scientist best known for his groundbreaking work in causal reasoning and Bayesian networks. These networks have been instrumental in various fields, including medicine, economics, and engineering, allowing researchers to...
#OnTheShouldersOf Yoshua Bengio
Yoshua Bengio is a Canadian computer scientist who has made significant contributions to the advancement of machine learning and neural networks, which have profoundly impacted various industries and technologies. Bengio has received numerous accolades for his work,...
#TheAIAlphabet: U for Unawareness
Imagine you're a skilled chess player, effortlessly anticipating your opponent's moves and maneuvering your pieces to victory. But what if you were suddenly blindfolded? Your once-sharp strategy would crumble, your moves guided by guesswork and uncertainty. This...
Combating Debanking in the Age of AI
Imagine coming back from a tiring day at work, eager to unwind and prepare for the weekend. You open your email, only to find a notification from your bank: your account has been closed without any warning. A wave of panic washes over you. How will you pay your bills?...
#TheAIAlphabet: T for Turing Olympics
The question of artificial intelligence (AI) has long intrigued humanity, with the idea of machines capable of thought and consciousness sparking both fascination and apprehension. One of the most prominent methods of evaluating AI progress has been the Turing Test,...
AI in the sky: Transforming travel experiences
“The ultimate travel agent”. That’s the vision that Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has for the vacation and short-term rental platform. One of the many steps to unlocking that vision is the sustained and strategic use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). And their first...
Why ‘AI’ is the right choice for Word of the Year 2023
Two letters. But what an impact they have had this year! Little wonder then that Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has been chosen as the ‘Word of the Year 2023’ by the Collins Dictionary. This is not surprising for an AI-led company like Crayon Data. In fact, it was...
#OnTheShouldersOf Claude Shannon
Claude Shannon was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer who made groundbreaking contributions to various fields of science and technology. He is regarded as the "Father of Information Theory" due to his pioneering work in digital...
#TheAIAlphabet: S for Stochastic Parrots
Imagine a parrot that can mimic human speech perfectly, but has no idea what it's saying. That's the idea behind a "stochastic parrot," a term coined by researchers to describe large language models (LLMs) that are good at generating human-like text, but don't...
Transforming Finance: The Machine Learning Revolution
In the dynamic landscape of technological innovation, one term is making waves across industries—Machine Learning (ML). As a subset of artificial intelligence (AI), ML is redefining the way we approach problem-solving, and the financial sector is no exception. Here,...
#TheAIAlphabet: R for Responsible AI
Imagine a world where every step you take, every word you utter, every choice you make is carefully observed, recorded, and analyzed by an invisible entity. This entity, let's call it "The Observer," uses this vast trove of data to predict your future behavior,...
Banking the Unbanked: The Path to Financial Inclusion in Africa
The inception of FinTechs promoting financial inclusion in Africa can be traced back to Kenya in 2007. Safaricom, a Kenyan mobile network operator affiliated with Vodafone, observed customers using prepaid airtime as a form of currency. This observation led to the...
#OnTheShouldersOf Sebastian Thrun
Sebastian Thrun is a prominent figure in the field of artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous systems. Thrun's career took off when he joined Stanford University as a professor in the Department of Computer Science. Here, he became known for his...
#TheAIAlphabet: Q for Quantum AI
“Why was the quantum AI always so calm and composed? Because it never had any bits of anxiety, only qubits of serenity!” AI is revolutionizing our world by creating machines and systems that mimic human intelligence and beyond. However, the increasing complexity and...
Is Edge AI the next big artificial intelligence trend?
As technology evolves on a day-to-day basis, it combines multiple facets to create ingenious results. We’re seeing Generative AI being incorporated into wearables. IoT is converging with machine learning and AI. As is edge computing. In fact, multiple predictions...
#OnTheShouldersOf Fei-Fei Li
Fei-Fei Li is renowned for her groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision. Her work in AI encompasses various contributions, from foundational datasets and algorithms in computer vision to pushing the boundaries of deep learning's...
#TheAIAlphabet: P for Pre-Trained Models
You know how you'd sometimes get stuck on a tough level while playing a video game? And desperately wished for a magical power-up? Well, pre-trained models are like those power-ups, but for computers and artificial intelligence! So, here's the scoop in simple terms:...
#OnTheShouldersOf Geoffrey Hinton
Geoffrey Everest Hinton is a pioneering figure in artificial intelligence and deep learning. Hinton's work has profoundly impacted the development of neural networks and machine learning, making him one of the most influential figures in the AI community. Hinton's...
#TheAIAlphabet: O for Orthogonality Thesis
The Orthogonality Thesis is the idea that when it comes to advanced AI, two important things - intelligence and motivation - can work independently of each other. In simpler terms, you can have a super-smart AI that's really good at doing things, but it might not...
How legalese is getting a Gen AI-powered makeover in the banking world
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a game-changer across various industries, and the legal and contracting domain is no exception. Traditionally, the legal sector has been notorious for its heaps of paperwork, time-consuming research, and expensive legal fees. AI...
Travel Marketplace-as-a-Service (MaaS): The magic of maya.ai for the holiday season
‘Tis (almost) the season to be jolly... And travel! Customers are busy making plans for the holidays. This includes booking tickets, making hotel reservations, and shopping up a storm. At the heart of this spending spree is the ever-present artificial intelligence...
#OnTheShouldersOf Raj Reddy
Meet the brilliant mind who is often regarded as the Father of Indian AI. Raj Reddy was born in Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, India, in 1937. He studied civil engineering at the College of Engineering Guindy, Chennai. After a master's degree from the...
#TheAIAlphabet: N for Neurosymbolic Learning
How do you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? In front of you, you see bread, peanut butter, and jelly. You know what to do. But how do you know what to do next? To put it simply, your brain combines the knowledge of what each ingredient is and how they...
How Explainable AI (XAI) is revolutionizing fintech
In the ever-evolving world of fintech, where algorithms help make critical financial decisions, a new player has emerged. Explainable AI (XAI) has evolved beyond the realm of helping creators and users of AI models understand how these models make decisions. In...
Marketplace-as-a-Service: The key to accelerating banking revenue
From digital wallets to contactless payments, the banking sector is constantly transforming. And the focus has been on creating customer experiences that make a difference to the bank’s bottom line. The most effective way to do this: a marketplace. Many banks...
#OnTheShouldersOf Demis Hassabis
Demis Hassabis is a British artificial intelligence researcher and entrepreneur, a name synonymous with the cutting-edge advancement of artificial intelligence. He is best known as the co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, a British AI company acquired by Google in 2014. He...
#TheAIAlphabet: M for Machine Consciousness
Consciousness is the awareness of one's own existence and surroundings. It is a complex phenomenon that is not fully understood, even in humans. So how can we tell if a machine is conscious? There is no definitive answer to this question. But one way to think about it...
#TheAIAlphabet: L for Long Short Term Memory (LSTM)
How does a restaurant server remember all the orders their customers have placed? They have a short-term memory, which can only hold a limited amount of information for a short period of time. So, if a customer places a complex order, they might have to write it down...
#OnTheShouldersOf Richard Sutton
Richard Sutton is a Canadian computer scientist and a prominent figure in the field of artificial intelligence, specifically in the field of reinforcement learning. A sub field of machine learning, reinforcement learning focuses on training agents to make sequential...
#TheAIAlphabet: K for Kalman Filtering
You're in a crowded room, trying to listen to someone who is speaking softly. The surrounding chatter makes it hard to hear clearly. This is similar to dealing with noisy data. Kalman Filtering steps in like a noise-canceling headset, filtering out the distracting...
A one-size-fits-all solution is unlikely to apply to hybrid work
Date: September 12, 2023 Source: Deccan Herald Many companies have embraced hybrid work as the most viable work arrangement to even out the pros and cons. Though children have been herded back to schools for in-person learning, the world of work has continued to...
#OnTheShoulderOf Cynthia Breazeal
Cynthia Breazeal is an American robotic scientist, entrepreneur, and researcher known for her work in social robotics. She focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence, robotics, and human-computer interaction. She is a professor at MIT, where she founded...
Recent Articles and Press
Is the GenAI out of the bottle?
GenAI can be funny Alexa, are you blue?" Alexa: Only my light ring... Only my light ring. GenAI can be productive "Translate 'Where is the restroom?' into Spanish. GenAI can be savage Siri, what's zero divided by zero?" Siri: "Imagine that you have zero cookies...
#OnTheShouldersOf Arthur Samuel
In this week’s episode, we delve into the legacy of Arthur Samuel, an icon whose contributions continue to shape the landscape of artificial intelligence. Samuel, a visionary ahead of his time, laid the groundwork for modern AI with his groundbreaking work in the...
Crayon Data on Financial Times ‘ High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2024 list
Date: March 13, 2024 Source: Financial Times Guess who has Crayon in their name and made it to Financial Times' list of High-Growth companies in the APAC region - It's us, Crayon Data! How do we do it? The mantra is "A great product coupled with great talent will not...
Aarti Ramakrishnan on the StrongHer list of 100 global women trailblazers 2024
Source: StrongHer Success and recognition are inevitable for those with an insatiable hunger to achieve. StrongHer Ventures, a venture capital firm with a focus on financing women-led projects, has published a list of 100 Women Trailblazers who embody this trait. And...
Crayon Data handles data with art
Date: April 4, 2024 Source: The Business Times When talent meets hard work, success is inevitable. MORE than a decade ago, Suresh Shankar saw the potential of Big Data, and observed that companies had a growing interest in harnessing such data for their business...
Karunakaran Neelakandan on Indian Startup Times’ list of visionaries at the helm of Artificial Intelligence
Date: March 29, 2024 Source: Indian Startup Times "Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality", said the American author Warren Bennis. If there's someone who epitomizes this quote best, it'd certainly be Karunakaran Neelakandan, our VP of...
Natural Language Processing Market Propelled by Rising Adoption of Chatbots and Need for Efficient Data Processing
Date: March 12, 2024 Source: WhaTech In this age of AI, NLP (Natural Language Processing) is one of the most-sought after capabilities by enterprises. With their to ability to efficiently analyze unstructured data, their popularity is not just a trend, but is here to...
#OnTheShouldersOf Herbert Simon
Imagine a polymath of the modern era, whose intellect seemed to transcend disciplinary boundaries, leaving indelible marks in fields as diverse as political science, computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. That's Herbert Alexander Simon for you – a true...
#OnTheShouldersOf Stuart Russell
Stuart J. Russell is a renowned computer scientist and a prominent figure in artificial intelligence. Russell's academic career has been closely tied to the University of California, Berkeley, where he held various positions before becoming a Professor of Computer...
#TheAIAlphabet: Z for Zero-Shot Learning
Zero-shot learning (ZSL) is an innovative approach in the realm of artificial intelligence that aims to teach machines to recognize and understand objects or concepts they have never encountered during their training phase. Unlike traditional machine learning models...
#OnTheShouldersOf Pushmeet Kohli
Pushmeet Kohli, a prominent figure in the realm of computer science, stands out for his influential contributions to artificial intelligence and machine learning. As a computer scientist of Indian origin, Kohli has made significant strides in shaping the landscape of...
#TheAIAlphabet: Y for YOLO
Imagine you're at a massive art gallery filled with countless paintings, each depicting a variety of scenes and objects. Your task is to quickly identify and label everything in the artwork. Traditionally, this process involves meticulously examining each painting in...
#TheAIAlphabet: X for Xception
Xception, short for "Extreme Inception," is an advanced convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of deep learning models in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Developed as an evolution of the...
#TheAIAlphabet: W for Winograd Schema Challenge
The Winograd Schema Challenge (WSC) is a linguistic benchmark designed to assess the capability of artificial intelligence systems to understand and generate human-like language in a nuanced context. Named after Terry Winograd, a computer scientist and professor, the...
#TheAIAlphabet: V for Vector Quantized VAE-2 (VQ VAE 2)
Vector Quantized Variational Autoencoder 2 (VQ VAE 2) is an advanced machine learning technique that combines the power of variational autoencoders (VAEs) with vector quantization to enhance the representation and generation of complex data. Let's break down this...
Fintech and payments trends to watch out for in 2024
Payments as a market is undergoing massive changes. As customer preferences evolve, so are the technologies they use. Globally, there are a number of key drivers behind the changes we’re seeing today. According to the ‘Top 10 Fintech and Payments Trends 2024’ Report...
AI Guardians of the digital wallet galaxy
In a world where your coffee, groceries, and even your taxi rides can be paid for with a tap of your phone, digital wallets have become the sleek, convenient sidekicks to our daily lives. But as with any great innovation, there's a shadow side: fraudsters are eager to...
Unlocking the Personalization Promise: What Banks Must Deliver
In today's world, where every customer interaction is a potential goldmine, banks are scrambling to deliver personalized experiences that set them apart from the competition. But what does personalization really mean in the context of banking? It's about understanding...
#OnTheShouldersOf Judea Pearl
Judea Pearl is an Israeli-American computer scientist best known for his groundbreaking work in causal reasoning and Bayesian networks. These networks have been instrumental in various fields, including medicine, economics, and engineering, allowing researchers to...
#OnTheShouldersOf Yoshua Bengio
Yoshua Bengio is a Canadian computer scientist who has made significant contributions to the advancement of machine learning and neural networks, which have profoundly impacted various industries and technologies. Bengio has received numerous accolades for his work,...
#TheAIAlphabet: U for Unawareness
Imagine you're a skilled chess player, effortlessly anticipating your opponent's moves and maneuvering your pieces to victory. But what if you were suddenly blindfolded? Your once-sharp strategy would crumble, your moves guided by guesswork and uncertainty. This...
Combating Debanking in the Age of AI
Imagine coming back from a tiring day at work, eager to unwind and prepare for the weekend. You open your email, only to find a notification from your bank: your account has been closed without any warning. A wave of panic washes over you. How will you pay your bills?...
#TheAIAlphabet: T for Turing Olympics
The question of artificial intelligence (AI) has long intrigued humanity, with the idea of machines capable of thought and consciousness sparking both fascination and apprehension. One of the most prominent methods of evaluating AI progress has been the Turing Test,...
AI in the sky: Transforming travel experiences
“The ultimate travel agent”. That’s the vision that Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has for the vacation and short-term rental platform. One of the many steps to unlocking that vision is the sustained and strategic use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). And their first...
Why ‘AI’ is the right choice for Word of the Year 2023
Two letters. But what an impact they have had this year! Little wonder then that Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has been chosen as the ‘Word of the Year 2023’ by the Collins Dictionary. This is not surprising for an AI-led company like Crayon Data. In fact, it was...
#OnTheShouldersOf Claude Shannon
Claude Shannon was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer who made groundbreaking contributions to various fields of science and technology. He is regarded as the "Father of Information Theory" due to his pioneering work in digital...
#TheAIAlphabet: S for Stochastic Parrots
Imagine a parrot that can mimic human speech perfectly, but has no idea what it's saying. That's the idea behind a "stochastic parrot," a term coined by researchers to describe large language models (LLMs) that are good at generating human-like text, but don't...
Transforming Finance: The Machine Learning Revolution
In the dynamic landscape of technological innovation, one term is making waves across industries—Machine Learning (ML). As a subset of artificial intelligence (AI), ML is redefining the way we approach problem-solving, and the financial sector is no exception. Here,...
#TheAIAlphabet: R for Responsible AI
Imagine a world where every step you take, every word you utter, every choice you make is carefully observed, recorded, and analyzed by an invisible entity. This entity, let's call it "The Observer," uses this vast trove of data to predict your future behavior,...
Banking the Unbanked: The Path to Financial Inclusion in Africa
The inception of FinTechs promoting financial inclusion in Africa can be traced back to Kenya in 2007. Safaricom, a Kenyan mobile network operator affiliated with Vodafone, observed customers using prepaid airtime as a form of currency. This observation led to the...
#OnTheShouldersOf Sebastian Thrun
Sebastian Thrun is a prominent figure in the field of artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous systems. Thrun's career took off when he joined Stanford University as a professor in the Department of Computer Science. Here, he became known for his...
#TheAIAlphabet: Q for Quantum AI
“Why was the quantum AI always so calm and composed? Because it never had any bits of anxiety, only qubits of serenity!” AI is revolutionizing our world by creating machines and systems that mimic human intelligence and beyond. However, the increasing complexity and...
Is Edge AI the next big artificial intelligence trend?
As technology evolves on a day-to-day basis, it combines multiple facets to create ingenious results. We’re seeing Generative AI being incorporated into wearables. IoT is converging with machine learning and AI. As is edge computing. In fact, multiple predictions...
#OnTheShouldersOf Fei-Fei Li
Fei-Fei Li is renowned for her groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision. Her work in AI encompasses various contributions, from foundational datasets and algorithms in computer vision to pushing the boundaries of deep learning's...
#TheAIAlphabet: P for Pre-Trained Models
You know how you'd sometimes get stuck on a tough level while playing a video game? And desperately wished for a magical power-up? Well, pre-trained models are like those power-ups, but for computers and artificial intelligence! So, here's the scoop in simple terms:...
#OnTheShouldersOf Geoffrey Hinton
Geoffrey Everest Hinton is a pioneering figure in artificial intelligence and deep learning. Hinton's work has profoundly impacted the development of neural networks and machine learning, making him one of the most influential figures in the AI community. Hinton's...
#TheAIAlphabet: O for Orthogonality Thesis
The Orthogonality Thesis is the idea that when it comes to advanced AI, two important things - intelligence and motivation - can work independently of each other. In simpler terms, you can have a super-smart AI that's really good at doing things, but it might not...
How legalese is getting a Gen AI-powered makeover in the banking world
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a game-changer across various industries, and the legal and contracting domain is no exception. Traditionally, the legal sector has been notorious for its heaps of paperwork, time-consuming research, and expensive legal fees. AI...
Travel Marketplace-as-a-Service (MaaS): The magic of maya.ai for the holiday season
‘Tis (almost) the season to be jolly... And travel! Customers are busy making plans for the holidays. This includes booking tickets, making hotel reservations, and shopping up a storm. At the heart of this spending spree is the ever-present artificial intelligence...
#OnTheShouldersOf Raj Reddy
Meet the brilliant mind who is often regarded as the Father of Indian AI. Raj Reddy was born in Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, India, in 1937. He studied civil engineering at the College of Engineering Guindy, Chennai. After a master's degree from the...
#TheAIAlphabet: N for Neurosymbolic Learning
How do you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? In front of you, you see bread, peanut butter, and jelly. You know what to do. But how do you know what to do next? To put it simply, your brain combines the knowledge of what each ingredient is and how they...
How Explainable AI (XAI) is revolutionizing fintech
In the ever-evolving world of fintech, where algorithms help make critical financial decisions, a new player has emerged. Explainable AI (XAI) has evolved beyond the realm of helping creators and users of AI models understand how these models make decisions. In...
Marketplace-as-a-Service: The key to accelerating banking revenue
From digital wallets to contactless payments, the banking sector is constantly transforming. And the focus has been on creating customer experiences that make a difference to the bank’s bottom line. The most effective way to do this: a marketplace. Many banks...
#OnTheShouldersOf Demis Hassabis
Demis Hassabis is a British artificial intelligence researcher and entrepreneur, a name synonymous with the cutting-edge advancement of artificial intelligence. He is best known as the co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, a British AI company acquired by Google in 2014. He...
#TheAIAlphabet: M for Machine Consciousness
Consciousness is the awareness of one's own existence and surroundings. It is a complex phenomenon that is not fully understood, even in humans. So how can we tell if a machine is conscious? There is no definitive answer to this question. But one way to think about it...
#TheAIAlphabet: L for Long Short Term Memory (LSTM)
How does a restaurant server remember all the orders their customers have placed? They have a short-term memory, which can only hold a limited amount of information for a short period of time. So, if a customer places a complex order, they might have to write it down...
#OnTheShouldersOf Richard Sutton
Richard Sutton is a Canadian computer scientist and a prominent figure in the field of artificial intelligence, specifically in the field of reinforcement learning. A sub field of machine learning, reinforcement learning focuses on training agents to make sequential...
#TheAIAlphabet: K for Kalman Filtering
You're in a crowded room, trying to listen to someone who is speaking softly. The surrounding chatter makes it hard to hear clearly. This is similar to dealing with noisy data. Kalman Filtering steps in like a noise-canceling headset, filtering out the distracting...
A one-size-fits-all solution is unlikely to apply to hybrid work
Date: September 12, 2023 Source: Deccan Herald Many companies have embraced hybrid work as the most viable work arrangement to even out the pros and cons. Though children have been herded back to schools for in-person learning, the world of work has continued to...
#OnTheShoulderOf Cynthia Breazeal
Cynthia Breazeal is an American robotic scientist, entrepreneur, and researcher known for her work in social robotics. She focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence, robotics, and human-computer interaction. She is a professor at MIT, where she founded...