Interview with Jacopo Corno, Business Manager of Deix
June 24, 2022
Interview with Jacopo Corno, Business Manager of Deix, the innovative startup that creates software to support companies
Entrepreneurs and managers who make strategic decisions within companies, increasingly need the support of reliable data analytics. These tools allow people to obtain essential information to make informed-choices, reducing the margins of error and increasing the effectiveness of the actions taken. This task can sometimes be very difficult and that’s why today I want to tell you about Deix!
What’s Deix
Deix is the startup that will help you make the best decisions for your company and seize new business opportunities, using the mathematical and algorithmic tools of optimization and artificial intelligence. Deix creates original solutions to bring innovation into companies. The models are translated into software and web applications for the management and the final users to support in the analysis of images and videos, to solve forecasting and predictive maintenance problems and for simulation-based optimization.
The main objective of Deix is to create tools that simplify the work of the company and at the same time offer a valid support to make the best decisions with the aim to better develop your business.
To learn more about it we interviewed Jacopo Corno, Business Manager of Deix.
Hello Jacopo, thank you so much for this opportunity. It is really a pleasure to meet you. Tell us something more about Deix.
We are a startup that creates innovative algorithms and applications using mathematical modeling and advanced techniques of optimization and artificial intelligence.
How and when was the idea born?
Deix was born in 2020 from the idea of four Italian professors and researchers from the university of Florence and the university “La Sapienza” in Rome. The world of scientific research and that of companies often have difficulties interacting with each other due to different objectives, timing and needs. Deix was born with the idea of bridging these two realities bringing the front end of academic research to real industrial problems and applications: the most innovative mathematical models and the most efficient algorithms to support business decisions.
How did you launch your startup? Did you use crowdfunding campaigns?
From the beginning Deix was self-financed and managed to sustain itself with the projects acquired. We started the first collaborations with small and large companies in particular by developing ad hoc optimization algorithms and collaborating with one of our clients on a series of training initiatives. Today we are expanding our customer base in a process of continuous growth that has also led us to expand our work team.
What makes you innovative compared to your competitors?
The approach we follow to be effective in the innovation process is to create a close partnership with our customers. In a project, whether it’s dealing with the development of a predictive maintenance software, or with the creation of a platform for financial market analysis, it is necessary to consider multiple aspects. We bring our modeling and technological skills, but the specific know-how of the customer is essential to contextualize the problem and to find a solution that truly meets its needs. Thus, the importance of cooperation!
With this kind of approach, we are able to follow a project from its inception, collaborating with the customer in the definition of the business challenge and the definition of objectives and criteria for success. Then we follow all the subsequent phases, the development of the models and the implementation of the algorithms. Finally, we continue the collaboration to ensure the adoption of our solutions by end users and to manage the continuous evolution of the software: the optimization of performance and the launch of new features.
How is artificial intelligence used with Deix?
To be more effective in building our solutions we have developed a platform based on an Input-Process-Output approach. This approach allows us to separate the problem on three levels.
At the Input level we have everything regarding the management of input data and their contextualization. It’s important to be able to manage both structured data, such as data originating from sensors or measurements, and unstructured data such as documents, photos, or videos, and real-time data, such as messages coming from IoT components. At this level, one needs to have clear business objectives and use the knowledge coming from the industry experts to define data cleaning and standardization procedures that only use the sources that are really needed.
The central level is dedicated to data processing. Deix’s experience in the design and implementation of mathematical models and algorithms of artificial intelligence and optimization has led us to develop a series of modules and libraries of analysis in continuous evolution. Supervised and unsupervised models for signal fault detection, identification methods, classification and tracking from images and videos, single and multi-objective optimization algorithms, make up the beating heart of the platform and can work individually or in synergy for the processing of data and the construction of results, simulations and KPIs useful to respond to the business challenge.
In order to answer to practical needs, the last level of the platform is structured as a modular dashboard system that interfaces with the modeling core to expose the results in a clear and effective way so that the end user can take the best decisions.
The modularity of the approach proposed by Deix allows people to collect in a single consolidated context the different data sources of the company, building a single “source of truth” on which our algorithms rely to support the different departments.
Objectives for the next few years?
Working at Deix means being able to give free space to creativity while maintaining a strong focus on our objectives. We are ambitious and focused on working with a smile, aware of the strong competitiveness and the great responsibility we have towards the companies and people we work with.
Our goal is to become a reference point for large companies who want to be able to make the most of the data available and their internal skills with the ultimate goal of improving the way they work, and thus the well-being of their employees and customers.
An important goal for us is also spreading the awareness towards more sustainable artificial intelligence algorithms. In fact, within our research activities we are developing Lifelong Learning and Continuous Learning solutions to reduce the ecological impact of model training and to ensure greater security in the management and maintenance of sensitive data.
Curiosity: who is your team composed of?
The development team consists of 4 people with skills of Data Science and Software Engineering. In addition, the four founding members form our scientific committee, which supports development activities thanks to their extensive knowledge in the field of optimization, data fusion, computer vision and machine learning. Finally, we make use of a series of collaborations, in particular to support us on internal process management, business development, communication and marketing.
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