IBM announces new Watson technology deployment projects and the opening of the Watson Group headquarters in New York

IBM has announced new projects to use the capabilities of IBM Watson and cognitive computing technologies. IBM Watson is an innovative platform that underlies the new era of computing due to its ability to understand natural languages, as well as to process huge arrays of big data in order to extract valuable information and further self-study.

IBM continues to develop Watson technology around the world and is pleased to share the following news:
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• Today, IBM is working with customers from 25 countries located on six continents; the list of countries includes South Africa, Australia, UK, Thailand, Canada and the USA;
• Watson began learning Spanish through a partnership with CaixaBank;
• IBM Watson partner companies present new Watson-based applications for the tourism, retail, IT services, healthcare, and non-profit sectors;
• IBM opens the Watson Group headquarters in the Silicon Alley, New York, as well as five new Watson client centers around the world.

“Watson is the driving force behind the new era of computing, helping organizations around the world launch new projects, identify target markets and transform entire industries,” said Mike Rodin, senior vice president, IBM Watson Group. “Moreover, Watson is at the heart of creating new markets and a whole ecosystem that includes our customers, partners, developers, venture companies, universities, and their students. The fate of a new generation of innovations is in the hands of those who are looking for connections in scattered and not obvious data arrays with the help of Watson. ”

Customers from all over the world are adopting Watson technology

The development of technology Watson is gaining momentum while customers from all over the world are implementing cognitive technologies to transform the interaction with their customers:

• ANZ Global Health (Australia) - Over the coming weeks, ANZ will introduce the Watson Engagement Advisor Tool at its center in Sydney, and also provide it to more than 400 financial planners. In this way, ANZ will be able to study the types of requests that come not only from clients, but also from financial advisers, in order to continue to develop the capabilities of Watson. The mission of ANZ is to help financial professionals reduce the time needed to provide professional advice from a few weeks to a single session. Right now, Watson’s main area of ​​expertise is insurance, but soon IBM Watson will be able to analyze information from the areas of pension insurance and investment.

• International Hospital Bumrungrad (Thailand) - Bumrungrad plans to use Watson technology to improve the quality of cancer treatment at its medical center in Bangkok, as well as analyzing medical cases in offices located in 16 countries on four continents. In the next five years, Bumrungrad plans to use IBM Watson for Oncology solutions, developed jointly by the Center for Sloan-Kettering, one of the world's leading cancer research centers. The innovative system will help Bumrungrad hospital staff to create effective treatment plans for cancer patients, based on the medical data of patients, published studies and extensive clinical expertise of the Center for them. Sloan-Kettering. IBM Watson will analyze vast amounts of information and, as a result, will issue a short reference that is relevant for each individual case. Bumrungrad Hospital is located in Bangkok and is the largest private clinic in Southeast Asia and one of the most reputable hospitals in the world, receiving 1.1 million patients from 190 countries annually.

• CaixaBank (Spain) - CaixaBank and IBM are collaborating to create a cognitive system that understands Spanish. Setting a goal to provide services of the highest quality, CaixaBank is a pioneer in the banking industry in the context of implementing information technology, including the world's first IBM PC in its offices, the creation of the first contactless ATM and the first online store of financial applications. Collaboration with IBM today is an important initiative for CaixaBank, as the bank will be the first organization that started teaching IBM Watson Spanish.

• Deakin University (Australia) - Deakin University is the first educational institution that Watson plans to use as part of creating an online student consulting system. This application will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the Internet and on mobile devices of more than 50,000 university students. Moreover, the system will be available to applicants and school staff in order to get answers to any questions, from the simplest to the most complex and personalized. Over the coming months, Watson will study thousands of pages of unstructured data that are contained in documents, presentations, and university brochures in order to provide users with the right answers to many questions in the future, such as: “Why should I go to this university?” does the university offer events? ”,“ How to get into the building of the Faculty of Biology? ”,“ What are the requirements for admission to this course? ”, and others. Subsequently, students interacting with Watson will be able to receive personalized advice based on individual profile information.

• Metropolitan Health (South Africa) - Metropolitan Health plans the first commercial introduction of IBM Watson technology throughout the African continent in order to transform the provision of health and health insurance consulting services to three million users in South Africa. Using the IBM Watson Engagement Advisor, cognitive computing technology will help insurance agents analyze arrays of structured and unstructured data to establish links between customer needs and a growing amount of data about people's well-being and lifestyle. Watson will allow insurance agents to select the right services and make decisions for better results.



Partners and startups present applications based on Watson

IBM's ecosystem partners present new Watson-based applications that help transform how organizations from health, services, research and education interact with each other and with their customers.
For example, entrepreneur Terry Jones (Terry Jones), founder of Travelocity and chairman of Kayak.com, is launching the WayBlazer project, a new application for travelers based on Watson technology. WayBlazer uses Watson's cognitive technology to engage, educate and counsel users through visual interaction and natural language and, ultimately, to provide high-quality travel services. In turn, the Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau uses the prototype WayBlazer to improve the booking process, increase the number of armor and organize additional revenue streams from partners and affiliates.

Watson is transforming healthcare and veterinary care, retail and non-profit sector:

- Red Ant (London, UK) offers a mobile application that helps store employees determine individual customer preferences by analyzing demographic statistics, purchase history and questionnaires, as well as product information, pricing, customer reviews and product technical specifications. The application supports text and voice data entry, thus providing the opportunity for interaction in natural language.

- Reflexis (Massachusetts, USA) uses Watson analytics based on events, social networks and other sources and helps to set priority reminders and tasks for managers of organizations, regional offices and retail outlets in order to improve customer service.

- Sellpoints (USA, California) provides an understanding of the relationship between consumer demand and the products offered. For example, when a customer searches for a product using natural language, the Natural Selection application from Sellpoints provides him with unique search results, sorted by relevance.

- Findability Sciences (Massachusetts, USA) helps non-profit organization members to ask the right questions in natural language and get answers promptly. The service provides sponsors with the opportunity to make reasonable decisions in terms of future investments, as well as to increase existing investments to achieve the best results.

- LifeLearn (Guelph, Canada) provides an opportunity for veterinarians to use a mobile application for processing data obtained on the basis of questions and answers, and planning optimal medical care for animals.

- GenieMD (USA, California) is a mobile platform that helps patients ask questions about specific diseases and medicines in natural language. Watson is trained in the process of answering questions and provides users with useful health information.

- Welltok (Colorado, USA) introduces CafeWell Concierge, which processes datasets to provide personalized health tips to the user.

- Point of Care (USA, New Jersey) is a mobile application for therapists that uses Watson cognitive technologies to understand questions in natural language and quickly find relevant information.

- SparkCognition (USA, Texas) is the first organization to represent the security services industry, using Watson technology to identify potential threats that may not yet exist by analyzing big data.

- CHIPS Technology Group (USA, New York) is developing a Watson-based solution that can handle a huge amount of disparate IT resources, including articles, studies and usage guides to provide unique information and high-quality technical support to end users.

More information about the projects can be found at the link .

IBM opens Watson headquarters in Silicon Alley in New York

IBM is also announcing the opening of the Watson Group headquarters at 51 Astor Place in Silicon Alley in New York. The headquarters will employ more than 600 IBM employees (the total number of employees working for the Watson Group is 2,000). Moreover, the doors of the headquarters will be open to developers and entrepreneurs, it will hold workshops and seminars to develop the startup community in New York.

The headquarters of the Watson Group will provide entrepreneurs and start-ups with technological tools for launching new products and projects based on Watson. Also, IBM plans to develop innovative cognitive technologies of Watson, interacting with five client centers located in different parts of the world.

Interactive client laboratories will help IBM’s customers get to know Watson’s technologies closely and understand how these technologies contribute to business transformation. Moreover, a laboratory will be located at headquarters, whose employees will work to improve customer experience and improve the quality of services provided to customers and partners. Workshops and seminars on technology development will allow start-up community to learn about how to bring new applications to the market. These activities will also help
the benefits of IBM's educational programs, implemented jointly with universities, in order to prepare students for their future careers in the field of cognitive technologies and big data analytics. As part of this initiative, IBM plans to offer students new courses, contests, provide grants and internship opportunities.

Along with the global spread and development of Watson, there is a growing need for new personnel with the proper skills to work in the field of cognitive technologies. In this regard, IBM announces the opening of the first five Watson Client Experience Centers to provide the support and human resources necessary to successfully implement the Watson cognitive platform. New centers will be located in Dublin (Ireland), London (United Kingdom), Melbourne (Australia), Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Singapore.