Geertrui Mieke De Ketelaere

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Geertrui Mieke De Ketelaere

Who is Geertrui Mieke De Ketelaere?

Geertrui Mieke De Ketelaere is Adjunct Professor at Vlerick Business School and Strategic Advisor at imec (IDLab). She holds a Master’s Degree in Civil and Industrial Engineering and specialized in robotics and artificial intelligence during her studies. Over the last 28 years, she has worked for several multinationals on all aspects of data and analytics (IBM, Microsoft, SAP, SAS, etc). From a business consulting point of view, she is specialized in defining the AI business canvas, from potential value to predefined risks. With her understanding of the hindsight, insight, and foresight of AI technologies, she also frequently acts as an expert and coach behind the scenes. In her public presentations and recent book, Mieke puts the focus on the demystification of the hype around AI. In 2018, she was nominated ‘ICT Woman of the Year’ in Belgium. The State Secretary of Digitalization, Mathieu Michel, appointed Mieke as ‘Digital Mind’ in 2020.

Can be booked in English, Dutch, French and German.

    AI: The good, the bad and the ugly

    AI applications are regularly being developed, but the exciting world of opportunities and possibilities includes other issues: privacy, ethics, energy consumption and liability. The discrepancy between what the developers create, what the customer buys, and what the government wants has increased the complexity bias.

    In this session, we will split the issues in the good, the bad and the ugly. The good: AI exceeds human intelligence when it gets to areas such as speed of processing, knowledge transfer, decision accuracy and operational modus. However, the human brain still wins on storage size, energy usage and parallel processing and many more points. We need to accept the fact that both forms of intelligence are good, but just different. What are those differences? The bad: A successful AI project isn’t only about data and technologies, but also processes and people. The bad refers to the typical mistakes made by a company. They can include incorrect training data to match the context, incorrect usage of learning algorithms and unconscious bias. How can this be easily fixed? The ugly: Some issues aren’t mistakes, but purposeful approaches: fake news, autogenerated speech used to fake video speeches for instance, and more. It is a strong call for 'security by design' and protection for algorithms through legal frameworks, which are currently created. What is needed to balance the future value and the risks of our AI systems?

    Me, myself and my AI

    For the successful adoption of AI, we need more female leaders. Why? Well, as AI projects succeed on 4 factors (data, technology, people and processes), women normally possess the right qualities to lead projects to build real-world AI products more successfully as they fully master the enablement of an environment for collaboration and inclusion. John Naisbitt once said: “The most exciting breakthroughs of the twenty-first century will not occur because of technology, but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human”. This seems odd in the world of artificial intelligence full of robots and automated machines, but when looking more closely at what’s currently needed to increase AI adoption, it all makes sense. In order to solve the above challenges of AI adoption and in order to build more successful AI products, we need to focus on a more collaborative and community-driven approach.

    How can we create an environment which takes into account opinions from different stakeholders, especially those who are under-represented? What is limiting us from creating a multidisciplinary debate around our AI solutions? What is needed to have access to AI translators at different levels? In this session I will share my personal views on what’s needed to work more holistically, outside of our own comfort zones. I will share my view on how to create the right environment where we look beyond gender, race, and cultural background. Based on a set of personal examples, I will analyse what’s needed both at educational and company level to create a shift in mentality towards more collaboration. It will be a call for more role models to stand-up, male and female, in order to build a better future with AI.

    AI: Drivers for success

    According to research, despite increased interest in and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the enterprise, 85% of AI projects ultimately fail to deliver on their intended promises to business. AI teams claims a major source of AI challenges is to be found in senior leadership who are lacking to see the value it can bring, however, is this the real problem? Multiple factors come into play when developing and implementing an AI project: Data, skills, domain understanding, company culture, AI strategy, data strategy, team setup, ... are a just few topics that play a key role in the success of AI projects. In this session, it will become clear that the major focus should not be on data and technology, but on people and processes. A common mistake. We will find answers on the questions: How to define high impact use cases? How to identify projects that will create the highest impact on company KPI’s, rather than picking projects where one only sees the scope of a technical breakthrough? You will understand what’s needed to move beyond the typical PPP (Pilot, POC & Prototype) phase while looking at some real examples and common reasons why AI projects fail to deliver. The successful drivers for AI implementations will be your new guideline when leaving the session.

Mieke De Ketelaere truly inspired us at FEICA’s Business Forum ‘Enabling a Sustainable Future’. She succeeded in capturing the attention of +700 participants with her passionate keynote demystifying AI. Mieke was applauded by our delegates for her ability to vividly bring across the complex topic of sustainable AI to a business audience. As an organiser, I also congratulate Mieke for her thorough preparation, digging into the specifics of our industry and making the Forum a resounding success. Thank you, well done!

Kristel Ons

Secretary General, FEICA

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