IBM announces new Watson technology implementation projects and Watson Group headquarters in New York

IBM has announced new projects to harness the power of IBM Watson and cognitive computing technology. IBM Watson is an innovative platform that lies at the heart of the new era of computing, thanks to its ability to understand natural languages ​​and process huge amounts 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:

• Today, IBM works with customers from 25 countries located on six continents; The list of countries includes South Africa, Australia, the UK, Thailand, Canada, and the United States;
• Watson started learning Spanish through a partnership with CaixaBank;
• IBM Watson partner companies present new Watson-based applications for the travel, retail, IT, healthcare, and non-profit sectors;
• IBM opens Watson Group’s headquarters in Silicon Alley, New York, as well as five new Watson customer centers around the world.

“Watson is driving the new era of computing, helping organizations around the world launch new projects, identify target markets and transform entire industries,” said Mike Rhodin, Senior Vice President, IBM Watson Group. “Moreover, Watson is at the heart of creating new markets and an entire ecosystem that includes our customers, partners, developers, venture companies, universities and their students. The fate of the new generation of innovations is in the hands of those who are looking for connections in disparate and not obvious data arrays using Watson. ”

Customers from all over the world are implementing Watson technologies.

The development of Watson technologies 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 new Watson Engagement Advisor Tool service at its center in Sydney, as well as provide it to more than 400 financial planners. In this way, ANZ will be able to study the types of requests received not only from clients, but also from financial advisors, in order to continue to develop Watson's capabilities. The objective of ANZ is to help financial professionals reduce the time required to provide professional advice from a few weeks to one session. Watson's core competency is insurance, but soon IBM Watson will be able to analyze information from the areas of pension insurance and investment.

• Bumrungrad International Hospital(Thailand) - Bumrungrad plans to use Watson technology to improve the quality of cancer treatment at its medical center in Bangkok, as well as analyze 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. Sloan Kettering - one of the leading world centers for the study of cancer. An innovative system will help Bumrungrad hospital staff to draw up effective treatment plans for cancer patients, based on the patient’s medical data, published studies and extensive clinical expertise of the Center. Sloan Kettering. IBM Watson will analyze huge amounts of information and, as a result, provide short help, 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. With a goal of providing the highest quality services, CaixaBank is a pioneer in the banking industry in the context of implementing information technologies, including the world's first IBM PC in its offices, the creation of the first contactless ATM and the first online financial application store. Collaborating with IBM today is an important initiative for CaixaBank, as the bank will be the first organization to start teaching IBM Watson Spanish.

• Deakin University(Australia) - Deakin University is the first educational institution to use Watson as part of creating an online consulting system for students. This application will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the Internet and on mobile devices to more than 50,000 university students. Moreover, applicants and school staff will be able to use the system to get answers to any questions, from the simplest to the most complex personalized ones. Over the coming months, Watson will study thousands of pages of unstructured data contained in university documents, presentations, and brochures in order to provide users with the correct answers to numerous questions in the future, such as: “Why should I go to this university?”, “What cultural does the university offer events? ”, “How to get into the building of the biological faculty?”, “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 is planning the first commercial implementation of IBM Watson technology across the African continent to transform the provision of healthcare 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 the relationship between customer needs and the growing amount of data about people's well-being and lifestyle. Watson will allow insurance agents to select the right services and make decisions to achieve better results.



Partners and startups present Watson-based applications

Partners in the IBM developer ecosystem are introducing new Watson-based applications that help transform how organizations in the healthcare, services, research, and education sectors interact with each other and their customers.
For example, entrepreneur Terry Jones, founder of Travelocity and chairman of Kayak.com, is launching the WayBlazer project, a new travel app based on Watson technology. WayBlazer uses Watson cognitive technology to engage, educate and advise users through visual interaction and natural language, and ultimately provide high-quality travel services. In turn, the Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau uses the WayBlazer prototype to improve the booking process, increase the number of reservations and organize additional revenue streams from partners and affiliates.

Watson transforms healthcare and veterinary care, retail and the 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 specifications. The application supports text and voice data entry, thus providing the possibility of interaction in a natural language.

- Reflexis(USA, Massachusetts) uses Watson analytics on the basis of events, data from social networks and other sources and helps to set priority reminders and tasks for heads of organizations, regional branches and retail points of sale in order to improve the level of customer service.

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

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

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

- GenieMD(USA, California) - a mobile platform that helps patients ask questions about specific diseases and medicines in a natural language. Watson learns how to answer questions and provides users with useful health information.

- Welltok (USA, Colorado) presents the CafeWell Concierge application, which processes data arrays to provide the user with personalized health improvement tips.

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

- SparkCognition(USA, Texas) is the first security services organization to use Watson technology to identify potential, possibly not yet existing threats by analyzing big data.

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

More detailed information about the projects can be found here .

IBM Opens Watson Headquarters in Silicon Alley New York

IBM also announces the opening of its Watson Group headquarters at 51 Astor Place in Silicon Alley, New York. More than 600 IBM employees will work at its headquarters (the total number of employees working in the Watson Group totals 2,000 people). Moreover, the doors of the headquarters will be open to developers and entrepreneurs, workshops and seminars will be held in it to develop the startup community of New York.

The Watson Group headquarters will provide technology and entrepreneurs with the means to launch new products and projects based on Watson. Also, IBM plans to develop Watson's innovative cognitive technologies, interacting with five client centers located in different parts of the world.

Interactive customer labs will help IBM customers become familiar with Watson technologies and understand how these technologies help transform the business. Moreover, a laboratory will be located at the headquarters, the staff of which will be engaged in improving client experience and improving the quality of services provided to customers and partners. Workshops and seminars on development technologies will allow the startup community to learn about ways to bring new applications to the market. These activities will also help.
the benefits of IBM's educational programs, implemented jointly with universities, to prepare students for a future career in cognitive technology and big data analytics. As part of this initiative, IBM plans to offer students new courses, contests, grants and internship opportunities.

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