Risk Economics® participation in various symposia, conferences and demo day events hosted by industry, academic institutions, governmental and non-governmental organizations.
Ms. Kappagoda discussed the Role of Data in AI along with Sharon Cohen Levin, Partner, Litigations Group & Member Criminal Defense and Investigations Group at Sullivan & Cromwell. Courtney Kidd Chubb, Head of Operations and Sector Strategist at Deloitte presented on AI and Talent and Emma Roberts, Senior Global Program Lead at Leanin.Org co-presented AI in the Workplace with Amy Auton-Smith, CEO of FairFrame. Closing remarks were given by Jami Miscik, CEO and Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates.
Barclays Annual Digital Leader Series is hosted by and for women executives who are focused on financials and technology, including credit cards, payments and FinTech. This series offers an opportunity for women in complimentary industries to network and have direct and meaningful discussion about topics of mutual interest.
About Risk Economics, Inc. Risk Economics is a New York based advisory firm founded in 1999, providing advisory services at the intersection of commercial business-process engineering and risk engineering with a particular focus on coupling commercial reinsurance and financial technology, through the rigorous application of agent-based, demographic, and statistical methodologies to microeconomic and macroeconomic analytics.
David K.A. Mordecai and Samantha Kappagoda were invited to participate as judges at NYU Tandon School of Engineering’s Sixteenth Annual Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW) Competition, November 6-8, 2019 at the MetroTech Center in Brooklyn, NY. RiskEcon® Lab @ Courant Institute has proudly co-sponsored this competition since 2018.
Academic entrants of all levels, from Post-Doctoral fellows and Ph.D. candidates to high school students took part in the three-day cybersecurity event, which was made up of several distinct competitions including the following:
Applied Research Competition
Capture the Flag
Embedded Security Challenge
Hack 3D
HackML
Logic Locking
Policy Competition
Red Team Competition
Security Quiz
David Mordecai and Samantha Kappagoda joined the panel of judges for the HackML competition, while Dr. Mordecai also served as a judge for the Applied Research competition.
The HackML competition challenged teams to design new, more powerful backdoor attacks on neural networks, and to develop novel defenses and detections. The Applied Research award reviewed papers on any topic related to the application or implementation of security technologies or security systems published or camera-ready between September 1, 2018 and August 31, 2019.
About CSAW CSAW, established at NYU Tandon School of Engineering (originally Polytechnic Institute of New York) in 2003, is the largest student-run cyber security event in the world, featuring international competitions, workshops, and industry events. Competitions are developed by undergraduate and graduate students associated with the OSIRIS Lab and the Center for Cyber Security at NYU Tandon School of Engineering in collaboration with student teams from across the globe. These students represent some of the leading security programs and academic institutions worldwide. The CSAW competition now runs annually in five other countries; at the Grenoble INP-Esisar in France, the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, the Ben-Gurion University and University of Haifa in Israel, NYU Abu Dhabi in Mena and University Iberoamericana Mexico City in Mexico.
About NYU Tandon School of Engineering NYU Tandon School of Engineering is a comprehensive school of engineering, applied sciences, technology and research, and is rooted in a 165-year tradition of invention, innovation and entrepreneurship. The institution, founded in 1854, is the nation’s second-oldest private engineering school. In addition to NYU’s main campus in Manhattan, NYU Tandon in downtown Brooklyn also offers programs at sites throughout the region and around the globe. Globally, NYU Tandon has programs in Israel, China and is an integral part of NYU’s campus in Abu Dhabi. NYU Tandon’s mission is to excel as a leading high-quality research institution engaged in education, discovery, and innovation with social, intellectual, and economic impact in the New York region, the nation, and the world. For more information, visit: https://engineering.nyu.edu.
About RiskEcon® Lab @ Courant Institute The mission of RiskEcon® Lab for Decision Metrics @ Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences NYU is the development of experimental testbeds and analytics that employ high-dimensional datasets from innovative sources by applying a range of computational and analytical methods to commercial and industrial sensor networks and edge computing embedded systems, focusing primarily on research and development (R&D) of remote- and compressed- sensing, anomaly detection, forensic analytics and statistical process control. By employing applied computational statistics within the context of robust and scalable data analytic solutions, the goal is robust and reliable integration of machine learning with signal processing for measurement and control, in order to conduct research fundamental to large-scale, real-world questions in risk and liability management.
RiskEcon® Lab enables, facilitates and coordinates academic research focusing on these patterns and trends, through the development of commercially-viable, analytic applications employing computational statistical tools in conjunction with innovative and non-traditional data structures. In addition, the lab’s activities involve the advancement of applied mathematical statistics and computational economics, through interdisciplinary post-doctoral, postgraduate, graduate research and education in data science and social computing.
RiskEcon® Lab for Decision Metrics was established in 2011 at Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, an independent division of New York University (NYU). Courant is considered to be one of the world’s leading mathematics educational and scientific research centers, and has been ranked first in research in applied mathematics. RiskEcon® Lab is the cornerstone of the Computational Economics and Algorithmic Data Analytics (CEcADA) cooperative at New York University, established concurrently in 2011.
The conference brought together innovators, regulators, market participants and the general public to discuss the latest in fintech developments and the impact of these emerging technologies on markets and customers. Building on last year’s inaugural conference, Fintech Forward delved deeper into artificial intelligence in the 21st century marketplace, digitization, big data and global perspectives on fintech issues all of which are current priorities for the CFTC.
About Risk Economics Risk Economics provides advisory services at the intersection of commercial business-process engineering and risk engineering with a particular focus on coupling commercial reinsurance and financial technology, through the rigorous application of agent-based, demographic, and statistical methodologies to microeconomic and macroeconomic analytics.
David K.A. Mordecai participated in Demo Day 2019 for FinTech Innovation Lab (FTIL) on June 27, 2019, as Scientist-in-Residence for FTIL. FTIL is an accelerator platform for early and growth stage technology firms, organized by the Partnership Fund for New York City, in conjunction with Accenture and a consortium of venture capital firms and global financial institutions.
As Scientist-in-Residence for FTIL, David K.A. Mordecai is one of six distinguished senior advisors who are members of the FTIL Mentors Network, comprised of seasoned entrepreneurs that have successfully launched and scaled a financial technology company to acquisition or IPO. Members of the Network serve as mentors and informal advisors for companies accepted into FTIL, providing guidance on the broad range of issues faced by senior management of fintech companies.
Demo Day 2019
Applicants to FTIL must have at least a working beta version of their technology that is ready for testing in either the institutional or retail market. The Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) from the 44 supporting financial firms selected the current set of 11 participants for the 2019 cycle:
CloudFrame: Transforms legacy mainframe applications into cloud-native Java without adding undue risk to data and business processes.
Cyberwrite: Provides a simple-to-understand report on the risks and financial impact of cyber-attacks on any small or medium-sized business worldwide.
Extend: The Extend digital credit card redefines how credit cards are issued and shared and provides virtual credit card distribution without requiring any bank tech development.
FairFrame: FairFrame is an innovative technology platform that combines decades of social science research with AI in an easy-to-use text analysis platform to give real-time, personalized feedback on potential stereotype and unconscious bias, as well as new data insights and a suite of diversity analytics.
Genus AI: Next-generation enterprise AI platform that helps financial institutions understand and engage with customers in an emotionally intelligent way, driving retention and revenue.
Goalsetter: A savings and gifting platform that enables families to use social savings, gifts and gamification to teach kids financial literacy and independence, backed by an FDIC-insured account.
Hyperscience: Uses proprietary machine learning technology to automate data entry and streamline document processing for large enterprises by extracting handwritten, printed and highly distorted text at accuracy levels surpassing manual data entry.
Inpher: Uses cryptographic technology to power advanced analytics and AI applications without exposing or transferring sensitive data across departments, organizations or jurisdictions.
Magma Trading: A new kind of stock market that allows broker-dealers to trade large blocks of equities. Magma’s structure allows market-making firms to post large potential trades without fear of getting run over by high-speed electronic sweeps.
npm: Manages the world’s largest software registry, empowering 11 million JavaScript developers with industry-leading tools and services. npm lowers engineering costs, reduces time to market and improves the user experience while providing a greater level of security.
Theta Lake: Cloud-based communication compliance platform that uses AI and deep learning to detect compliance risks in what was said, shared and shown — driving down the cost of compliance.
The mission of RiskEcon® Lab for Decision Metrics @ Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences is the development of experimental testbeds and analytics that employ high-dimensional datasets from innovative sources by applying a range of computational and analytical methods to commercial and industrial sensor networks and edge computing embedded systems, focusing primarily on research and development (R&D) of remote- and compressed- sensing, anomaly detection, forensic analytics and statistical process control.
RiskEcon® Lab for Decision Metrics was established in 2011 at Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, an independent division of New York University (NYU). Courant is considered to be one of the world’s leading mathematics educational and scientific research centers, and has been ranked first in research in applied mathematics. RiskEcon® Lab is the cornerstone of the Computational Economics and Algorithmic Data Analytics (CEcADA) cooperative at New York University, established concurrently in 2011.
About the Partnership Fund for New York City
The Partnership Fund for New York City is the $160 million investment arm of the Partnership for New York City, New York’s leading business organization. The Fund’s mission is to engage the City’s business leaders to identify and support promising entrepreneurs — in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors – to create jobs, spur new business and expand opportunities for New Yorkers to participate in the City’s economy. As an “evergreen” fund, realized gains are continuously reinvested.
Samantha Kappagoda and David K.A. Mordecai presented as invited panelists at the 2019 American Bar Association Annual Meeting and 34th Intellectual Property Law Conference (ABA-IPL) in Crystal City, Virginia.
Ms. Kappagoda presented intuitive insights and practical technical observations related to the functional aspects of blockchain consensus algorithms most relevant to their scalable reliability and validity during the panel Blockchain & IP Promises and Limitations. Samantha Kappagoda is Chief Economist of Risk Economics, and co-advises research activities at RiskEcon® Lab for Decision Metrics @ Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences NYU. She has extensive experience overseeing development and implementation of analytics and algorithms in real-world trading environments, in addition to Masters degrees from both University of Chicago and University of Toronto, and a BSc (Honors) degree in Mathematics from Imperial College London.
Dr. Mordecai highlighted relevant operative aspects of Artificial intelligence, and offered observations regarding law and economics implications of those underlying technologies during the panel Artificial Intelligence and IP Rights in and from AI Around the Globe. David K.A. Mordecai is President of Risk Economics and co-advises research activities at RiskEcon® Lab @ Courant Institute. He has over three decades of extensive industry and capital markets experience with automation and operational risk in diverse commercial contexts, as well as a PhD from University of Chicago and an MBA in Finance from NYU Stern. He is also a Vice-Chair of the AI and Robotics Law Committee of the SciTech Chapter of the ABA, and Co-Chair of the cybersecurity industry organizing committee of the NSF-funded Northeast Big Data Hub.
Samantha Kappagoda was invited to speak at the University of Toronto annual Next Steps Conference on January 26, 2019. She spoke on a panel entitled Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The Next Steps Conference offers University of Toronto students and recent graduates with insights into professional development, career growth and network building in various areas and sectors.
Samantha Kappagoda is Chief Economist and Co-Founder of Risk Economics. She earned an M.A. in Economics with concentrations in Industrial Organization and Monetary Economics from the University of Toronto, where she was a Massey College Junior Fellow and awarded the Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
About the University of Toronto The University of Toronto is a public research university based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King’s College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada. The University of Toronto offers over 700 undergraduate and 200 graduate programs. In all major rankings, the university consistently ranks in the top 10 public universities in the world and as the top university in the country. It receives the most annual scientific research funding and endowment of any Canadian university and is one of two members of the Association of American Universities outside the United States. For more information, visit: https://www.utoronto.ca
