About Dr Jacques Ludik
Dr Jacques Ludik is a smart technology entrepreneur, AI expert, founder of multiple AI companies, Author, International Keynote Speaker, AI ecosystem builder, and award-winning AI Leader with a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence (Computer Science) and 25+ years' experience in AI and Data Science and its applications.
One of his companies, CSense Systems, was Africa's first AI company that was sold to a multi-national company, specifically General Electric in 2011. CSense Systems provided AI software, services and solutions to customers around the globe in a broad range of industries (financial, mining, chemical, manufacturing, etc.) via an international reseller and solution partner network.
Dr Ludik is currently the Co-founder of Sustainable Technology Ventures Capital (STVC), Co-founder of Bluefin Group, Founder & CEO of Cortex AI Group, and Founder & President of the Machine Intelligence Institute of Africa (MIIA) that focuses on transforming Africa through AI. STVC is a global AI-native fund of funds with its own AI-driven investment automation platform that specializes in mega projects, private equity, and venture capital within the smart technology sector to deliver superior returns for investors whilst driving a sustainable future - so both return on investment and return on impact. Bluefin Group aims to transform Africa through the implementation of large-scale infrastructure and smart technology driven projects for governments and businesses across the continent. Cortex AI Group pushes AI innovation to developing State-of-the-art Personalized AI and Intelligent Agents on Trustworthy AI Guardrails for a Decentralized World to unlock societal and business value at scale and optimize quality of life for as many people as possible. Dr Ludik has also introduced a massive transformative purpose for humanity and its associated goals to help shape a beneficial human-centric future. To this end he has also founded Sapiens (Sapiens.it.com) as a decentralized, human-centric, user-controlled AI-driven super platform.Dr Ludik’s recent book Democratizing Artificial Intelligence to Benefit Everyone is not only sense-making journey on democratizing AI to benefit everyone, but also introduces a massive transformative purpose for humanity and its associated goals to help shape a beneficial human-centric future (which complements the United Nations’ 2030 vision and SDGs) along with Sapiens (sapiens.it.com) as a decentralized human-centric user-controlled AI-driven super platform to empower individuals and monetizes their data and services and can be extended to extended to companies, communities, cities, city-states, and beyond.
Dr. Ludik is involved in building AI-based data rich platforms that leverage AI technologies to unlock business, customer, and societal value. His massive transformative purpose is to help shape a better future in the Smart Technology Era, and specifically to help business and society thrive and to help transform Africa. He is also passionate to help transform Africa through smart Technologies such as AI and blockchain as well as building AI communities and exponential organizations.
He was also Founder and CEO of Cortex Group and Cortex Logic that were besides providing state-of-the-art AI solutions to companies in the consumer-facing sectors as well as mining and manufacturing industrial also focused on providing scalable ultra-personalized AI-enabled wellness solutions, where Vive Teens was a spin-out company focused on providing an AI-driven personal mental wellness companion for teenagers and Journey Wellness an AI-enabled ultra-personalized health wellness solution.
Apart from the executive management roles in all the AI companies that he founded, he was previously also Vice President Data Science and Chief Data Officer at Jumo (providing a full technology stack for building and running financial services and marketplaces in the emerging markets), Director and Big Data and Analytics Leader at General Electric and Senior Lecturer and Researcher at Stellenbosch University. Dozens of his papers on AI were published in Journals and International Conferences as well as a book, Neural Networks and Psychopathology, published by Cambridge University Press (UK). He also has a patent filed for a method of establishing a process decision support system through mathematical, rules-based or case-based reasoning Knowledge Fusion.
Jacques holds a B.Sc. (Cum Laude), Hons. B.Sc. (Cum Laude), M.Sc. (Cum Laude), and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Stellenbosch University. Dr Ludik currently also serves on the Advisory Boards of IMCI+ (non-executive director), TOMARS,Cirrus, Data Science Nigeria, AI Centre of Excellence and Intelliverse.AI in Kenya, and Verchool in the UAE, is a member of the AI Africa Consortium, and is a Swiss Cognitive Global AI Ambassador. In 2019, he is also the recipient of Africa’s AI Leader of the Year Award. For more details, see the high-level bio.
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The Jacques Ludik Podcast