Olivia Higgs, COO of KOMPAS, gives TEDx on Artificial Intelligence after being named as one of the UK’s most inspirational young individuals.

JCI UK recognised Olivia as one of the UK’s most inspirational young individuals for her accomplishments in business and economics at the end of 2017, and in Mach 2018, Olivia was invited to Virginia, the United States, to talk about the impact of artificial intelligence on the wider society. At just 23, Olivia is quickly becoming a thought-leader in the field, and her recent TEDx talk is available at http://bit.ly/tedxolivia.

On 25th March 2018, Olivia spoke about the benefits and limitations of artificial intelligence in Virginia, United States, and how we can expect to see the technology influence society in the next decade. Key takeaways included the need for the conversation to include all members of society, and how we train the developing technology to take ethics and human values into account. Olivia was successfully able to combine her passion for languages and culture, with technology, to inform the audience on how they can prepare for the 4th industrial revolution, by focusing on creativity and art, as opposed to automated tasks.

Olivia is the COO and co-founder of artificial intelligence company KOMPAS, a company leveraging machine learning and data, to personalise the city exploration space. The team behind the product includes Olivia, Kurt Henderson, and fellow TEDx speaker Tom Charman after they experienced first hand the problems associated with existing solutions in the space. Their focus on creating ‘handpicked’ recommendations, powered by large datasets and machine learning, is not only new but is a demonstrable use of the emerging technology.

Olivia said ‘It’s an honour to have been welcomed to the TEDx stage, alongside some of the world’s most influential speakers, researchers, and leaders’. She talked about KOMPAS, saying ‘The work that we’re doing at KOMPAS, allows us to understand what people want to see, and we’re doing this to solve the exact problem that my co-founders and I had on day one’.

Although the field of artificial intelligence is not new, a spend of £465m in 2016 is expected to increase to £27bn by 2025 according to market research firm Tractica. KOMPAS was recently recognised as one of the top 300 AI companies in the UK, with VC’s including 500 Startups, Index and Seedcamp all playing a large role in the UK landscape. According to a recent report, the opportunity presented by artificial intelligence could add an additional £630bn to the UK economy by 2035, increasing the annual growth rate of GVA from 2.5 to 3.9%. Corporates are also looking heavily into the space, for fear of disruption.

Olivia said that she hopes her recent talk will help to ‘highlight the opportunities presented by artificial intelligence while demystifying some of the concerns that the wider public has about the technology’. She hopes her approach to include the wider public in the discussion about the ethics of the industry, will prevent any major decisions impacting negatively on different parts of society.

Olivia’s business KOMPAS was recently named as the best mobile travel applications of 2018 by TMT media and has won multiple awards for innovation and technology, particularly for their use of artificial intelligence within the travel industry. They are currently raising money, with the intention to expand into a further 11 cities, and focus on building out a revenue model that focuses on creating a tangible benefit for small independent businesses in cities such as London, that currently struggle to reach the right audience due to poor data insight. KOMPAS is creating a real-time interface empowering the physical world through data.

ENDS

Notes to editors

Operating out of London, but available in 6 cities across the UK and Germany, the team of 10 are focused on building something that saves consumers time, by highlighting the bits of a city that suit their preferences. At the same time, KOMPAS uses real-time data to create an interface that empowers small businesses, by helping them reach the right audience. The goal is to move away from generic places, towards a storybook approach that highlights the importance of brick and mortar businesses in and around a city.

KOMPAS has won multiple awards for innovation and technology and has been recognised as one of the UK’s leading travel applications. The company continues to grow at over 40% month-on-month and is currently part of a world-leading artificial intelligence accelerator, Creative Destruction Lab in Toronto. They’re poised to become one of the leading travel-applications worldwide in the next 3 years.

Inquiries

Tom Charman

+447966423998

@CharmanTom

tom@kompasapp.com

www.kompasapp.com


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About KOMPAS

KOMPAS is a dependable city exploration companion that uses smart algorithms to personalise content to each individual user based on their interests. We present relevant reviews and a hassle free way of getting around the city. You can customise your journey in a way that suits exactly what you want to do. Find unique, relevant and undiscovered locations in your own back yard. Street art, underground jazz bars and much more is just waiting to be found. We're able to scale in any city, in short, intense periods of time, by producing unique, relevant and unique content.