Telekom Open Spaces - 5 Questions to… Aleksandar Stojanovic

1. Hey, Aleks. Nice to talk to you today. It‘s quite impressive to see that you started your first business in the age of 17! So, please tell us more that, and about what happened in your life afterwards

 Aleksandar Stojanovic: As many other teenagers I was fascinated by the music industry and dreamed of becoming a part of it. I took that into reality, when I became a rapper and music producer. This was a pretty successful endeavor: For example, I still hold the record for keeping the #1 position in the Russian music charts for 23 weeks in a row. Also in Germany and the rest of the world, some of my work from that time is well known. I had a lot of fun. But it was also the time, when digital technologies started their relentless conquest to disrupt and transform many verticals, with the music industry being the first to be hit extremely hard. I still remember when a friend handed me one CD with 300 high-quality MP3 songs on it. That was when a CD usually contained only 12 songs. Within months, loss-free digital copying was the new normal. Also production processes were democratized. Industry leaders, who got used to their Ferrari, had to take the bus, again. It was just mayhem. So even before Napster emerged, I decided to change my professional focus from music to digital technology and business. I was incredibly lucky, sold my label and embarked for the probably most defining chapter in my life.

The Expo 2000 was looking for someone to envision and implement a digital infotainment strategy. Through a weird mixture of luck and accident I fell into this role and it opened up whole new dimensions: I had access to the best talents, top-notch technologies, and virtually unlimited resources and budgets. With full freedom to execute, my team and I deployed live-streaming, intelligent chatbots, browser-games, and very early forms of social networking. Today, all of this is standard. But back then, that stuff was like secret alien-technology. I was truly Aleks in wonderland. The Expo 2000 was life-changing for me, as I also met my wife during this project, which she led as the creative director. Somehow we made it to the front-row, when the digital millennium started.

I experimented a lot in the time to follow, when the rise of the mobile internet allowed me to move back into entrepreneurship: I used my old music industry knowledge to license rights from some old but iconic computer games from the eighties, which I ported and published for the use on java-enabled mobile phones. T-Mobile was already one of my customers, when I sold that company.

Right away, and together with my wife, I started a digital strategy and technology consultancy, which quickly served many world leading brands and corporations. I got my hands on some of the most advanced technologies and was involved in starting several new digital businesses. During this time, I met my co-founder in AVA, Sascha Knopp, who hired my company for one of his projects. Starting from 2008 we deployed AI-driven technologies together. With time, we became friends and then brothers. In 2010, I sold my company to Publicis Groupe, and stayed there to work at the intersection of digital tech and regulated markets, where I also put a lot of AI into work. When my post-merger lockup period was over, I left to start AVA with Sascha. For both of us it was a deliberate decision to take our combined experience and some of the most advanced exponential technologies to create something with a deeper purpose and meaning. AVA is result of this ambition.

2. Where to you expect to be AI to be in 5 years

Aleksandar Stojanovic: AI is already embedded into many aspects of our life, yet often invisible to most of the people. Due to its exponential nature and some very strong network effects, AI will become even more relevant in our day-to-day life. Yet, I believe that after the initial wow-effects, most of the everyday-applications will become ubiquitous.

On the other side, the political and societal conversation will continue. For example in regards to the dual-use potential of AI, the resulting shifts in global and regional power, and how to regulate this complex field.

Generally, I am very optimistic and excited over what the future holds for us as humans. Probably, some parts of the transition to this new age will be hard. Some old job roles will vanish. On the other side, new opportunities will emerge. I feel the responsibility to embrace and drive these changes to create these new opportunities faster, so that they are already existing, when the changes start to become present in our everyday lives.

3. Which challenges of AI are the currently the strongest ones and how do those affect your business?

Aleksandar Stojanovic: I am a bit concerned with the inflated anxieties, which may lead to an overly early regulation of some aspects of AI. A lot of the conversation is driven by people, who have never really worked with these technologies and are totally unaware of the actual limitations. Still, Twitter, Cinema, and Netflix, where series such as Black Mirror draw dystopian futures of humans being surveilled, controlled, and killed by machines.

Those dark scenarios are attractive content. That led to a steady stream of pictures of unethical monsters emerging within our machines. Unfortunately, these unreal ideas start to shape reality, with insufficiently informed citizens and politicians discussing regulation and limitation as for how far research and application of AI could and should go. That way, important ethical questions mix up with science fiction, taking away room that is needed for the truly crucial conversations. I hope and work that the dialogue becomes more objective and serious. This is a conversation of our future and therefore should not he driven by the fear of Terminator or the Matrix becoming real.

4. You are the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of AVA, an AI and deep data platform to monitor and predict security, safety, and risk in the physical world, addressing crime, terror, accidents, natural disasters, and many other aspects. Does dealing with security and public safety on a daily basis have an influence on your private life? Do you even use some AI devices?

Aleksandar Stojanovic: Most definitely. Both my co-founder and I had no clue over the security and risk intelligence space, when we decided that this would be the area where we would apply our knowledge and experiences to. We started with the idea of creating an AI-driven mobile app, which would show the most up-to-date security and risk status for a users location. In the beginning, many people told us that this sounds like a great idea for Brazil or South Africa, but not for Cologne, Paris, or London. As we all know, this has completely changed during the last four years.

When we started implementing the core technology and AI to drive this mobile app, we understood how important our work actually is. Security, safety, and risk is embedded into every single aspect of our lives. Our families, cities, societies, businesses, organizations all rely on it. And while seemingly all information is instantly available, there has been no way for us to see whether the locations and areas of relevance are safe and what the future risk could be.

Today, AVA works for and with city halls and police forces of major cities, such as London. But also Public Transport Organizations and leading Corporations from Logistics, Insurance, Mobility, and Tourism make use of AVA's AI.

As our systems are extremely fast in detecting incidents and risk, I am usually the one who knows first, when bad things happen in my neighborhood or somewhere around the world. Just recently, I was informed of a fire on the opposite side of the street where I live. Fires are pretty usual, but thanks to our systems contextualizing capabilities, I learned that there is a galvanization factory just one block away - and that the combination of fire and acid is the recipe for a disaster.

Also, I am confronted with news, which has no air-time on mainstream media, such as the ongoing Ebola crisis right now in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Here, it is not just the outbreak of a viral disease in a comparably well connected area, but also major security issues. Due to fake news being spreader in the area by frightened citizens, armed militia is actively shooting at the doctors and medical response teams.

We capture thousands of - minor to major - incidents worldwide and with that, I am much more aware, while also more calm, knowing that AVA is like a guardian angel watching the world for potential risk to me and the people I care about.

5. At Telekom Open Spaces we are all about learning and sharing knowledge. So we ask everybody to share his favorite sources of information. What are your favorite websites, blogs or newsletters you follow?

Aleksandar Stojanovic: In our team we follow the major minds and developments in the field of applied narrow AI, general AI, data science, and digital technology. We run an internal slack-channel, in which I have a steady stream of really interesting new developments in our field. Another major source is realclearfuture.com, which I read every morning. It is not particularly focused on AI, but rather curating interesting articles from all spectrums of technology. A book that I like to recommend is from Anastassia Lauterbach, one of the leading women in the field. She wrote "The AI imperative" which is an excellent hand book for leaders, executives, and board members to get a fist high-quality dose of significant knowledge on AI.

All right, Aleksandar, thanks for the opportunity of this interesting exchange and for the recommendations regarding your personal information resources.

We wish you an enjoyable afternoon at the Rise of AI Conference.

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