The Pragmatist’s Guide to Applying Machine Learning

Want to take advantage of the latest research and advances in ML? Looking to chase the next big thing? Often the most useful machine learning models are based on the pain points you see every day. Tom Vu, Senior Director and Head of Data Science and Machine Learning at Flexport, has identified and applied disruptive machine learning opportunities that resulted in over $2 billion of value during the course of his career.

In this keynote, Vu shares his insights on how the limitations posed on human reasoning help identify ML opportunities, the importance of understanding processes and pain points relative to cognitive load, and what led him to decide to build an AI model to predict costs from CAD drawings. Vu’s portfolio of applied research projects and interests include routing, scheduling, assignment optimization under uncertainty, geospatial-temporal forecasting, imperfect information games, natural language processing, and computer vision. Prior to Flexport, Vu was the Head of Data Science and Analytics at WeWork, and the Chief Data Scientist at Boeing. He has over 20 years of experience implementing vision, transforming unmet business opportunities into realized software solutions.