-- Wired Magazine’s Most Inspiring Team Voting Now Live at https://www.wired.com/sponsored/story/the-ibm-watson-ai-xprize-is-more-than-a-competition/Peo
-- The woman-owned company’s AI solutions equip frontline workers in the public sector to protect the vulnerable and end systemic exploitation.
-- Marinus Analytics deploys empowering tools to disrupt human trafficking, child abuse, and cyber fraud.
PITTSBURGH (June 9, 2021)—Marinus Analytics, the Pittsburgh-based technology company that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to fight human trafficking, has been selected as the lone American finalist for the global $3M IBM Watson AI XPRIZE Competition. The organization’s global panel of jury members will decide the winners, to be announced on June 23.
A “People’s Choice” award allows for the public to choose The Most Inspiring Team through Wired magazine at https://www.wired.com/sponsored/story/the-ibm-watson-ai-xprize-is-more-than-a-competition/
Click the image above to view and vote for the Marinus Final Pitch.
Spanning five years, the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE competition began in 2016 with 780 submissions, which was narrowed in 2017 to 147 companies representing 22 countries. The three global finalists, Marinus Analytics, Canada’s Aifred Health, and Israel’s Zzapp Malaria, will present their pitches for the final awards. The winner will receive a $3 million grand prize. The runner-up will receive $1 million, and third place will be awarded $500,000.
“The global fight against human and sex trafficking never ends and neither will our efforts to assist public servants to put away the traffickers and protect the innocent,” says Marinus Analytics President and CoFounder Emily Kennedy. “If we’re fortunate to be selected by the jury, we will be able to find more victims, detect more organized crime rings globally, and expand our work in the areas of child protection and cyber fraud.”
The company’s software saved more than 70,000 investigative hours in 2020 alone, enabling public servants to focus time on saving more victims and breaking up more organized crime rings.
Founded in 2014 out of The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Marinus Analytics uses AI to get actionable insights out of big data to empower a victim-centered response and serve experts working on the front lines of public safety. The flagship tool, Traffic Jam, revolutionizes the way detectives are able to stop and prevent human trafficking, recover victims, and dismantle organized criminal networks, by deploying graph analytics to detect organized crime and purpose-driven algorithms to identify vulnerability indicators, informing frontline professionals to hidden exploitation.
Marinus CoFounder Emily Kennedy pitching at the XPrize SemiFinals last year at TED Headquarters in NYC.
“Front line public safety and social services professionals protect our communities and we are honored to partner with them,” says Cara Jones, CEO and CoFounder of Marinus Analytics. “Winning the XPrize would be their victory as well.”
XPRIZE, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is the global leader in designing and implementing innovative competition models to solve the world’s grandest challenges. Active competitions include the $20 Million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, $10 Million XPRIZE Rainforest, $10 Million ANA Avatar XPRIZE, $6 Million XPRIZE Rapid COVID Testing, the $5 Million IBM Watson AI XPRIZE, $5 Million XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling, and $500K Pandemic Response Challenge. For more information, visit xprize.org.
Listen to Kennedy describe the story and impact of Marinus Analytics in the company’s final pitch video here.
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