About
AI RESEARCH
Delivering ground-breaking expertise to address real-world challenges
PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IS POSSIBLE WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
At AI Research, we believe that creating positive outcomes for others is the true measure of a company's worth. That's why we are working to push the limits of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning to provide new insights from data that can create real breakthroughs for our clients.
MICHAEL SANDOVAL
Founder/CEO/CTO
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Inventor, mathematician and data scientist, Michael Sandoval is the former Founder & CEO of Atigeo, a big data platform company focused on developing real-time petabyte-scale 21st century analytics on ANY data natively. Michael specializes in the hybrid optimization of all the 20th century math tools including machine learning, neural networks, AI, NLP, data mining and search.
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He served 10 years at Microsoft as Executive for Products, Services, Solutions and he was the Founder of the Microsoft Partner Solutions Center. Michael was a Scientist for AIN Platforms and Advanced Communications for the Department of Defense and World Bank. He has 30 Patents in AI and Data Analytics.
KEN SPEDDEN
Special Adviser
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A recognized leader in innovation and public-private partnerships, Ken Spedden has led teams of subject matter experts and thought-leaders to solve difficult challenges facing US national interests and global humanitarian priorities. He led a novel technology-driven approach designed to galvanize countries to come together to achieve the United Nations 2030 Sustainability Goals. He was the first person in the U.S. to strategically launch and execute a novel innovation initiative across high schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This effort was recognized as a Top 100 initiative of positive impact in the United States by the White House in 2016.
Ken has been a successful C-Suite Executive in both start-up and emerging technology companies for over 15 years where he provided successful stewardship over $200M in recognized revenues and generated organic revenue pipeline exceeding $500M. His work also includes creating advanced technology capability solutions that have been both briefed and funded by U.S. Intelligence Community agencies.
He regularly briefs U.S. National Security, U.S. Five Eyes Alliance and Fortune 100/500 leaders on topic areas related to innovation, cyber security, advanced analytics and advanced technology capabilities.
GREG AKERS
Board of Directors
Greg Akers recently retired as the Senior Vice President of Advanced Security Initiatives and Chief Technology Officer within the Security and Trust Organization (STO) at Cisco. With more than two decades of executive experience, Mr. Akers brings a wide range of technical and security knowledge to his current role. A major focus of his group is to expand security awareness and launch product resiliency initiatives throughout Cisco's development organization to deliver high-quality and secure products to customers. He also serves as executive sponsor of the Cisco Disability Awareness Network.
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Greg joined Cisco in 1993. He has held a variety of technical, managerial and executive roles at Cisco. These have included networking engineer, Vice President for the Worldwide Technical Assistance Center, Senior Vice President-CTO Services and Senior Vice President-Global Governments Solutions Group. He also holds the CCIE certification.
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In addition to his primary role, Greg is an Internet security and critical infrastructure protection advisor to Cisco customers and to the U.S. government. He regularly advises and directs activities relative to technology and security matters of domestic and international importance. In this capacity he has held leadership roles, such as serving as President of the IT-Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) organization in 2002 and Vice President in 2001. Greg has also advised the U.S. Department of Defense and the federal intelligence community for more than fifteen years. Greg is a member of the National White-Collar Crime Board and the Board of Directors of the East Carolina Infraguard. Presently he leads and serves on various boards, panels and task forces within the U.S. Department of Defense.
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Before joining Cisco, Greg's career included more than 15 years of designing, building, and running large networks for Fortune 100 companies. He has held senior technical and leadership roles at Fechheimer Brothers, a holding of Berkshire Hathaway, and Procter and Gamble.
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Greg holds a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Akron.
JIM DUBOIS
Board of Directors
Jim DuBois served as Chief Information Officer and Corporate Vice President at Microsoft Corporation from May 2013 to September 2017. Mr. DuBois was accountable for the company’s global security, IT infrastructure, collaboration and all business applications.
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Jim is a tech leader with a unique view of IT innovation and digital transformation along with a deep understanding of technical strategy, cyber security, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. He brings content about these topic areas to life with stories from his 25 years at Microsoft, especially leading the digital transformation as CIO as Satya Nadella reinvented Microsoft. Jim held many key leadership positions at Microsoft leading product and application teams, infrastructure and security teams, including serving as Microsoft’s Chief Information Security Officer and spending several years living in Asia and then Europe learning the Microsoft field business while running the respective regional IT teams.
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Jim has been Board Director of Expeditors International, a Fortune 500 logistics company since May 2016. Since retiring from Microsoft, Jim has written a critically acclaimed book about the lessons he learned in the transformation at Microsoft and has become very active in the startup community including serving as a Venture Advisor at Ignition Partners, a prominent Seattle-based venture capital company, and serving on the Advisory Board for several startups. In addition to AIR this includes Asignio, Collabra Technologies, Corent Technology, Cyemptive, nFusz, NoPasswords and Subsplash.
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Before joining Microsoft, Mr. DuBois worked for Accenture, focusing on financial and distribution systems. He has degrees in computer science and business from the University of Washington.
DAVID BRAY, PhD
Board of Advisors
Dr. David Bray - Executive Director, People-Centered Internet coalition and Senior Fellow, Institute for Human-Machine Cognition
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Dr. David A. Bray has served in a variety of leadership roles in turbulent environments, including bioterrorism preparedness and response from 2000-2005, time on the ground in Afghanistan in 2009, serving as the non-partisan Executive Director for a bipartisan National Commission on R&D, and providing leadership as a non-partisan federal agency Senior Executive. Since 2017, he has served as Executive Director for the People-Centered Internet coalition co-founded by Vint Cerf and focused on providing support and expertise for community-focused projects that measurably improve people’s lives using the Internet. He also is President of the non-profit startup Hu-manity.org and sits on the Board for a few companies in the social and digital transformation space. David’s passions include the Future of Work, Future of Governance, and the Future of Augmented living learning communities that maintain a human focus on collaboration, pluralism, and individual choices. He was also named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum for 2016-2021 and a Marshall Memorial Fellow. Business Insider also named him one of the “24 Americans Who Are Changing the World”.
David's passions include “near impossible missions” involving humans and technology in challenging circumstances. This included rolling out new technologies that achieved results in 1/2 the time at 1/6 the cost. He was selected to be the recipient of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronic Association’s Outstanding Achievement Award for Civilian Government in 2015. He received the global CIO 100 Award twice, which usually is awarded to private sector Fortune 500 companies, both in 2015 and 2017, for his transformational leadership in change-adverse settings. He received both the Arthur S. Flemming Award and Roger W. Jones Award for Executive Leadership in 2013. In 2012, he became the Executive Director for the bipartisan National Commission for Review of Research and Development Programs of the United States Intelligence Community, later receiving the National Intelligence Exceptional Achievement Medal. He volunteered in 2009 to deploy to Afghanistan to help “think differently” on military and humanitarian issues and in 2010 became a Senior National Intelligence Service Executive advocating for increased information interoperability, cybersecurity, and protection of civil liberties.
David likes to be a digital diplomat and a “human flak jacket” for teams of change agents working in turbulent environments. He began working at age 15 on computer simulations at a high-energy physics facility investigating quarks and neutrinos. In later roles, he designed new telemedicine interfaces and space-based forest fire forecasting prototypes for the Department of Defense. From 1998-2000 he volunteered as a part-time crew lead with Habitat for Humanity International in the Philippines, Honduras, Romania, and Nepal while also working as a project manager with Yahoo! and a Microsoft partner firm. Dr. Bray then joined as IT Chief for the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, leading the program’s technology response to during 9/11, anthrax in 2001, Severe Acute Respiratory System in 2003, and other international public health emergencies. He completed a PhD from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and two post-doctoral associateships at MIT and Harvard in 2008. He was chosen to be an Eisenhower Fellow to meet with leaders in Taiwan and Australia on multisector cyber strategies for the “Internet of Everything”. He also serves on advisory Boards and provides strategy to start-ups espousing human-centric principles regarding collaboration, technology, and decision-making in turbulent, challenging environments.​
MELVIN GREER
Board of Advisors
​​Melvin Greer is Chief Data Scientist, Americas, Intel Corporation. Melvin is responsible for building Intel’s data science platform through artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cognitive computing to accelerate transformation of data into a strategic asset for global enterprises. His systems and software engineering experience has resulted in patented inventions in cloud computing, synthetic biology, and IoT bio-sensors for edge analytics.
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Melvin is one of the 2018 LinkedIn Top 10 Voices in data science and analytics. He also received the Washington Exec inaugural Pinnacle Award as the 2018 Artificial Intelligence Executive of the Year. Melvin received the 2017 BDPA Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2012 BEYA Technologist of the Year Award which recognize his outstanding technical contributions that have had a material impact and high value to society as a whole. Melvin is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and U.S. National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine, GUIRR.
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He functions as a university professor and principal investigator where he significantly advances the body of knowledge in basic research and advanced engineering. Melvin is the award-winning author of five books, and the Managing Director of the Greer Institute for Leadership and Innovation, focused on the maturing of new leaders and the growth of future innovators. Melvin Greer has written for, or been covered by, The New Times, Washington Post, Federal Computer Week, Forbes, Computerworld, Washington Executive and Government Computer News.
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Website: www.greerinstitute.org
GEORGE LAZENBY
Board of Advisors
​​George I. Lazenby, IV is a Co-Founder of OrderInsite, LLC and serves as its Chief Executive Officer.
Mr. Lazenby serves as a Senior Advisor for Emdeon's majority investor, Blackstone Capital Partners. Previously he served as the Chief Executive Officer of Emdeon, Inc., (now known as Change Healthcare Holdings, Inc.) where he led Emdeon through significant growth and change making the company a clear leader in its space. In 2009, Mr. Lazenby led Emdeon through a successful IPO and in 2011 sold the company to Blackstone for $3 billion.​ At Emdeon Business Services, Mr. Lazenby delivered record sales and revenue growth and was responsible for a number of industry innovations in the revenue cycle management market. He was also responsible for managing all provider and payer activities as well as its Medical Practice Management Software Business.
He has been a Director of NextGxDx Inc. since March 5, 2014. He has been a Director at CarePayment LLC since October 21, 2015. He has been a Director of EBS Master since March 2007. He serves as a Director of Compass, Lucro Solutions, Inc., and ProxsysRX. He serves as a Member of Board of Advisors of Enziime, Inc. (formerly Vitalspring Technologies, Inc.). He served as a Director of Emdeon Inc. since March 2007.
Mr. Lazenby is a Certified Public Accountant. Mr. Lazenby received his Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Alabama.
BRIAN VOWINKEL
Board of Advisors
An Eagle Scout who graduated from West Point, Brian has led people and managed resources in postings around the world as an Army officer and as a business leader. He earned an MBA at Harvard Business School and has helped start several private companies as well as launch new regional offices for public companies. As an entrepreneur across industries from the age of eleven, Brian is particularly suited to advise other entrepreneurs and their families. Developing sophisticated investment skills on Wall Street, he moved to the Northwest in 2001 for the outdoor lifestyle and pioneering spirit. Brian has served as an advisor to wealthy families for two decades, helping them navigate increasingly complex markets.
Community service and giving back are important to Brian and he has served in numerous non-profit organizations. Congressman Dave Reichert appointed him to his Economic Council and to his Academy Nomination Committee. Brian has served as Chairman of the Eastside Business Roundtable, as well as boards of USO Northwest, Bellevue Chamber of Commerce, Swedish Hospital Summit Club, City Year Seattle, and Gen-Next Seattle. He spent 13 years as a Social Venture Partner. He is currently a Police Commissioner for the city of Clyde Hill, a board member of the Tateuchi Center Performing Arts Center in Bellevue, and coaches youth soccer. Brian resides in Clyde Hill with his wife and children, ever eager for outdoor adventures.
Personal Quote:
"You cannot be an imposter nor rely solely on the talents of others when you exit the door of an airplane in flight with 95 lbs. of gear in the dark of night, you must have trained hard and you must steel your own courage and perform in the face of uncertainty and risk." - Airborne Ranger