Rethinking Social Data with Dr. Kenton White

10 years ago Social Media broke into the mainstream. Facebook, Twitter and Reddit promised an unfiltered view into our collective consciousness. Today influencers and bots actively game the system, skewing perception towards their agendas. There are still insights that can be mined from Social Data, but with ever increasing effort. At Advanced Symbolics we developed a tool called askpolly that rethinks Social Data from the ground up, making finding those insights effortless. I’ll discuss every aspect of Social Data we considered in askpolly’s development and how at every step we defined the user experience and tackled tough technological challenges.

Kenton White has been working in the AI space since 2003, when he was co-founder and Chief Technology Officer for Distil Interactive. Distil Interactive used artificial intelligence to evaluate worker performance in training simulations. In 2009 Canadian Standards Association, North America’s largest corporate training provider, acquired Distil Interactive. Following the acquisition, Dr. White was a Professor of Computer Science, first with Carleton University and then with University of Ottawa. Today, Dr. White is co-founder and Chief Scientist of Advanced Symbolics, an artificial intelligence company.

Dr. White studied Physics at University of California, Berkeley (go Bears!) and holds a Ph.D. in Physics / Applied Mathematics from The University of Arizona (go Wildcats!). He is a past chair of the Canada’s National Science and Engineering Research Council’s Electrical and Computer Engineering committee and a Special Advisor to the Defence Science Advisory Board. Dr. White has published over 80 peer reviewed journal and conference articles, 7 patents, and has been a featured and keynote speaker at several international AI conferences.

To learn more about Kenton's work see:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenton-white-6021221/
https://www.advancedsymbolics.com/

Our Sponsors
We are extremely grateful to these organizations for their generous support of CapCHI and the local UX community.

Carleton University Master of HCI
https://carleton.ca/hci
The Master of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) degree offers students an opportunity to explore their native discipline in more depth while also gaining insight into the language and constraints under which specialists in other disciplines in the HCI field work.

DFFRNT
https://dffrnt.ca
We’re an exceptional team of highly experienced behavioural researchers and design strategists. We apply a fundamental understanding of human behaviour, strategic design and human-computer interaction to deliver product and service design value.

Human-Centred Design Lab
https://www.human-centred.ca
An interdisciplinary postgraduate program and research lab focused on evidence-based design strategy. We work with businesses, governments and not-for-profit organizations to provide students an industry-focused learning experience.

Jumping Elephants
https://www.jumpingelephants.ca
A full-service, consulting group based in Ottawa and specializing in user-centred solutions design and business process management for the public and private sector.

Portage Cybertech
https://convergetp.com
Our business and technical professionals are committed to helping private and public sector organizations adopt, utilize, and manage technology to deliver trusted, high-value digital services.