NLP in PracticeNLP in Practice

10th National Natural Language Processing Research Symposium, February 22, 2014De La Salle University

About Me

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Allan C. Tan, PMP, SCEACatch ‘97 CS-CT

About Me

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Who is spending?

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SRI InternationalSRI International is a nonprofit, independent research and innovation center serving government and industry.

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Judicata

• Mapping the legal genome to help you understand the law.• Using highly specialized case law parsing and algorithmically

assisted human review to turn unstructured court opinions into structured data.

• Organizes and helps make sense of massive information for better decision making.

• Judicata has raised $2M and $5.8M seed funding.

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Siri

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Siri is an intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator; Uses NLP to answer questions, make recommendations and perform actions.

Apple bought Siri, Inc. last 2010 for amount between $100M - $200M.

Siri, Inc.

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Origins:

In 2000, DARPA asked SRI to investigate the feasibility of a “personal assistant that learns”. CALO was born.

In 2006, Siri spin-off was created. Original idea is to accept as text input.

In 2008, a series A funding amounting to $8.5M followed by $15M series B funding.

So, What Worked?

• Initial research was government funded (DARPA).

• Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 allows licensing of IP from federally funded research work.

• Increased processing power on mobile phones.

• Voice recognition is now more acceptable.• 3G signal allows faster network data

transfer.

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Summly

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• Summly is a news summarization app developed by Nick D’Aloisio-Montilla.

• Nick developed Summly at age of 15. Youngest person to receive venture funding. He was also Time’s 100 most influential teenager.

• Summly used technology from SRI International.

• As for March 2013, Summly was sold to Yahoo! for reportedly $30M.

Brief History

• March 2011, Nick developed Trimit application for iOS. • Li Ka-shing initially invested $300,000.• In December 2011, Nick redeveloped the app to Summly based

on feedback and criticism from users.• In November 2012, Nick received $1M funding from Li Ka-

Shing.• In March 2013, Yahoo! buys Summly for $30M.• Summly is now Yahoo! News Digest

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What Worked?

• Funding support from VCs.• App Store for distribution. – Summly was #1 in App Store under news category.• Usability. – Reading long news on the phone will not work.– Simple interface and swipe gestures.

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Company Orientation 13

Four Technology Megatrends

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Courtesy of PSIA

Social Media Trends

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Mobile Trends

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Source: Economist

Cloud Trends

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Source: IBM

Big Data

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My Real World Experience

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Virtual Extraction Engine•Developed 2008-2009•80+% accuracy is not acceptable•Consider other external factors

Lessons Learned:•Present solution accordingly•High Cost of R&D

My Real World Experience

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Potential Areas of Research

NLP aims to bridge the gap between human and machines. As such, NLP is applicable in areas where there is human interaction

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• Advertising• Automotive• Entertainment• Knowledge Base:• Legal• Medical• Human Resources• Education• Many more…

• Service:• Customer Service• Translation• Virtual Assistants• Human Resources• Social Media

• Telecommunications

Questions to AskThe Market:•Who is my target market?•How large is my target market? How much can they spend?Your Solution:•What is the problem I’m trying to solve?•How am I solving the problem?•Why will they use my solution?•How much are they willing to pay for my solution?Competition:•Who is doing this right now?•Why is mine better?

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SRI NABC Approach

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Goal

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“The only way to come up with something new—something world changing—is to think outside of the constraints everyone else has. You have to think outside of the artificial limits everyone else has already set.” - Steve Jobs

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the network

1,000+Grads1,000+Grads

2,500+Mentors2,500+

Mentors

50+ Cities50+

Cities200+ Partners

200+ Partners

PSIA Spring.ph• SPRING.ph 2014 program includes monthly meet-ups dubbed as

“TechTalks” for startups, quarterly LaunchPad events, monthly coaching sessions, and a startup competition for schools.

• Student Startup Competition

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Thank You!

Allan C. Tan, PMP, SCEAallan@ideyatech.com

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