Good opportunities to combine university employment with industrial collaboration attract AI expertise to Sweden – despite tough international competition. The latest recruitment is Professor Aristides Gionis, currently at Aalto University, and with a background including positions at Yahoo! and Microsoft.
With very attractive recruitment packages, a unique platform for academic research in close collaboration with
Swedish industry, and a firm collective push from key individuals at WASP, at the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and at participating universities and industry, WASP has now finalized several high-level recruitments in AI.
“The only way to rapidly advance Sweden’s position in artificial intelligence is through international recruitment of highly qualified professors. Each professor we bring on board leads to several new doctors and lots of new knowledge. And this benefits our common pool of expertise in Sweden”, explains Mille Millnert, chair of the WASP board.
Expert in data mining to KTH
The latest recruit, Aristides Gionis, is currently professor at Aalto University in Finland. He has previously worked at Yahoo! and Microsoft. His employment at KTH Royal Institute of Technology begins in the summer of 2019. At KTH he will teach data mining and establish a research team.
Annika Stensson Trigell, vice president for research at KTH, has been involved in the recruitment. She explains that Aristides Gionis has extensive experience of developing efficient calculation algorithms for the analysis of large data volumes, including data from social media.
“This research is important for the continued advancement of AI methods that can make use of information in various types of data. Aristides Gionis’ profile complements KTH’s existing skill-set in AI. By building up a close collaboration with our researchers in a range of fields, such as energy, transport, digitalization and industrial transformation, we expect his contribution to include more efficient algorithms and new methods.”
Talents important for industry 4.0
Collaboration between academia and industry is important as new knowledge and additional applications of AI emerge. For this reason, the recruitment process for the international WASP professors also involves representatives from Swedish industry. Magnus Frodigh, head of research at Ericsson, is one of them:
“Artificial intelligence is a key area, if we are to be a world leader in the development of industry 4.0 and the ongoing digitalization. By linking the best talents to the program, WASP ensures that it can continue to drive development forward, and deliver first-class research results.”
Published: May 29th, 2019