Dr. David Ferrucci, Lead IBM Watson Scientist, to Deliver Keynote at TiEcon 2011

News provided by

Apr 26, 2011, 09:00 ET

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- (http://www.myprgenie.com/) -- TiE Silicon Valley announced today that David Ferrucci, the lead researcher behind IBM's Watson, a breakthrough in computers understanding natural language, will deliver a keynote speech on Friday, May 13th at TiEcon 2011.

TiEcon 2011 will take place at the Santa Clara Convention Center, May 13-14. Each year, the conference brings together a diverse and dynamic group of leaders from business, technology, venture capital, and media for two days of education, inspiration, and networking.

"We are very excited to have Dr. Ferrucci speak at our annual conference, TiEcon. In February of this year, 14.5 million viewers watched as Watson beat human opponents on Jeopardy! The IBM Challenge. Now 3,000 entrepreneurs will watch as IBM shares how Watson technology will change the way the world works with our audience," said Vish Mishra, President of TiE Silicon Valley.

Dr. Ferrucci's work on Watson began in 2007, when he and a team of IBM Research scientists explored the possibility of a computer system that could rival the ability of Jeopardy champions to answer questions with speed, accuracy and confidence. Responding to Jeopardy questions represents natural language processing, which was previously a shortcoming of artificial intelligence computer systems. The research of Dr. Ferrucci and the IBM team at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, called the DeepQA Project, or "Watson Technology," has led to a system that not only outperforms Jeopardy's greatest champions, but lends itself to numerous possibilities for future technologies.

What makes the Watson system unique is its ability to rapidly process unstructured information and respond with precision. It has the capability to help businesses make decisions in many industries, such as healthcare, finance and telecom. Dr. Ferrucci will discuss these implications in his keynote address at TiEcon.

IBM's participation in TiEcon 2011 is an example of its investment in the Startup America Partnership, a public-private partnership formed this January by the White House to support entrepreneurialism and drive innovation and job creation. Through the IBM Innovation Centers, Smart Camps and its Global Entrepreneur initiative, IBM works with start-ups that are developing new technologies and big ideas with the potential of improving the way people live and work.

TiEcon 2011: Innovation Reigns, will feature session tracks and keynote speeches focused on key market segments: Cloud, Mobile, Social, Energy and Life Sciences. Other keynotes at TiEcon 2011 include: Steve Case, Co-Founder of AOL and Chair of the Startup America Partnership; Sal Khan, Educator and Founder of the Khan Academy; and Vinod Khosla, Founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, Founder of Khosla Ventures.

Follow TiEcon on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/tiecon, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tiesiliconvalley, and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/tiesiliconvalley.

About TiE

TiE is a global, not-for-profit organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurs across its international network. Sponsored by top Venture Capital Firms and Fortune 500 corporations, TiE's network has grown across 56 chapters in 13 countries.

Contact: Amanda Day, [email protected], 573-380-0867

SOURCE TiE Silicon Valley