Our series of Marketplace Spotlight interviews focus on the partners making the Yocova platform come alive and the digital aviation solutions they provide. Here we speak to Tim El-Sheikh, co-founder, CEO and Chief Technology Architect of Nebuli, the world’s first Augmented Intelligence Studio, about why ethical AI and data usage is important, his business and solutions, how they can be applied in the aviation industry, and the benefits he sees in Yocova.
How did you get to where you are today?
“I’ve been into technology from a young age, but during my degree in biomedical science, I learned the real power of technology. In 2002, after a period working as a biomedical scientist, I decided I wanted to be a tech entrepreneur. I set up my first company, the world’s first ad network supporting independent science publishers and biotech firms. During that time, I’d seen how publishers had taken advantage of people’s private information without consent, and I had even been encouraged by investors to sell the data of the millions of users on my network. I flatly refused to do that – I wouldn’t want my personal information used in that way. This was when I started shifting my focus towards data ethics and ethical AI. That was back in 2008 and by 2012, the whole aspect of misinformation really started to emerge. Since then, I’ve worked on many different projects with this ethos as the backbone, which has led to the establishment of Nebuli.”
What is Nebuli about?
“Nebuli is the world’s first augmented intelligence studio. In AI there are basically two camps of thinkers – those who believe technology should be developed to replace humans, as in artificial intelligence, and those who believe technology should be developed to empower humans and not replace them. The latter camp consisted of not just engineers and mathematicians, but also designers, artists, psychologists and philosophers. And those are types of people we have at Nebuli. We help companies really understand the meaning of AI, what it is and how it works.”
What are Nebuli’s main solutions?
“We have three products – BehaviorLink, Datastack and ClientLab. With BehaviorLink we use technical psychographics and psychometric analysis to analyse behaviours and try to use AI to influence behavioural change. It connects the behaviours of consumers within a target market and the impact this has on their interaction with a product or service.
Datastack is related to that, but through this we apply a more AI data-driven approach to the framework created through BehaviorLink. Through this we can bring different technologies together, from the cloud, latest AI algorithms or existing technologies a company may have to create a seamless user experience. It’s designed to unify datasets to make them more accessible, efficient and cost effective.
ClientLab came about as a direct result of the pandemic as we had a lot of companies approaching us about how they could modernise and digitise. It’s like an extended research team for your company – a panel of researchers, scientists, designers, mathematicians and business experts that helps businesses achieve digital transformation.”
What kinds of companies does Nebuli provide solutions for?
“When we first started Nebuli, the focus was to help biotech companies. Today we have customers in the financial markets and automotive industry, and we’ve started working with the utilities sector as well as biotech. We also have a partnership with the University of Leicester, which is a European Space Programme member, working on a project to unify datasets from satellites and NASA. That led us to look at opportunities to work with the aviation industry. We’re basically market-agnostic.”
How can Nebuli help Yocova members and the aviation industry?
“I think there is a huge opportunity for the aviation sector to transform the digital customer experience. I’ve been lucky enough to travel a lot since I was young, and nothing has really changed much in aviation over that time. I do think the digital experience is lacking. I read a report by McKinsey last year that highlighted that the aviation sector only invests 5% of revenue in digitisation, whereas the banking sector invests around double that, which given the way the world is right now, is still quite low in my opinion. I think we need to consider how to move with the times and how to create a digital experience that customers would positively engage with. There’s so much potential to make the whole journey – from purchase to arrival at a destination and even beyond that – more enjoyable. Nebuli’s augmented intelligence can help identify where the opportunities lie.”
Why did you join Yocova and how do you engage on the platform?
“We were first introduced to Yocova through our connection with Rolls-Royce and we signed up around six months ago. So far, we’ve spent time setting up our store fronts in the Marketplace and have started engaging more since February. What I like about Yocova is that it’s a market-specific digital platform. LinkedIn was great 10 years ago for engaging with other professionals, but I feel it has become over-saturated and its usefulness has become diluted over time. I think there’s a real market right now for professional networks that focus on specific markets. We wanted to work with the aviation industry and with Yocova we can communicate with the whole range of suppliers and professionals in that sector. And for me, if we’re talking about digitisation it’s especially important. You can’t create digital transformation by focusing on just one company, it’s a combination of different relationships. Yocova enables us to connect across the whole industry and I think that’s fantastic.”
Do you have a particular message about Nebuli for Yocova members?
“We’re different. I know everybody probably says that about where they work, but going back to my earlier point, we’re really focused on the ethical side of things. That’s not virtue signalling, it’s smart. Other companies that just take data left, right and centre because they think it will make their AI smarter have caused damage to their users, their customers’ reputation and their own reputation. In creating an ethical system, we’ve created a really smart system. We don’t need to know personal details or likes and dislikes, we only need to know a demographic. And we’re a collective of experienced entrepreneurs and some of the best mathematicians in the world.”
For more information, to contact or collaborate…
You can contact Tim via his Yocova profile
or visit the Nebuli storefront
Author: Team Yocova
Published 5th October 2022
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