November 22 Speakers

Date: November 22nd

Time: 1-2 pm

Topic: AI: Using storytelling to help audiences understand future technology

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Company: Orange Sparkle Ball

Speakers:

Ashley Touchton

Job Title: Design and Startup Strategist

LinkedIn About:

“I am a design and startup strategist from Atlanta, Georgia with a degree in industrial design from the Georgia Institute of Technology. I am passionate about solving problems from inception to creation and everything in between.
I am process driven and love finding the “why” behind any given problem. With experience in product design, user design, startup and corporate communication, prototyping, and leadership, I am dedicated to moving quickly and efficiently to find and refine the best solution within tight time frames to keep projects on track and new initiatives moving forward. As a design strategist, I focus on startup design strategy and innovation, strategic corporate acceleration, and identity development.”

Nick Fisch

Job Title: Video Specialist

Linkedin About:

“Startup culture is where I thrive. In 2014 I helped to successfully start up a video service model within a small agency, Orange Sparkle Ball. Through this experience I have found that my strengths in strategy and ideation open doors to new opportunities for both myself and my clients alike. My work now is heavily focused on startup and idea acceleration, using design thinking and creative tools to move the needle for corporations, clients, consumers, and other creatives. My hard skills lie mostly in video production, I have a BFA from The Savannah College of Art and Design in Motion Graphics and 5+ years of industry experience in shooting and editing video. I find video to be an incredibly powerful medium to tell stories, solve problems, increase awareness, and elicit a response.”

November 15 Speaker

Speaker: Marilyn Jackson

Date: November 15th

Time: 1-2 pm

Topic: AI: AI & Extended Reality in Data Visualization (Seeing Data Differently)

This event has been cancelled due to a medical emergency. We will be showing the documentary In the Age of AI if you still wish to attend. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Company: Undergrid Networks

Job title: President & CEO

LinkedIn About:

Because I believe that knowledge is the key to success, I constantly amass new skill sets and abilities that allow me to operate across the technology spectrum. I’m in pursuit of knowledge every day and search out opportunities and people that motivate and empower me.

I thoroughly enjoy using technology to solve the world’s challenges and problems. I’m still very interested in being a significant player in the next wave of technology. I am particularly interested in innovation at it relates to the Internet of Things and the hordes of Data that it will produce.

My experiences have positioned me to be an influencer and developer of new business opportunities, revenue increasing solutions, and persuader of technical standards and industry trends.

I develop, implement, and manage innovative projects that support economic growth and community development. As a frequent panelist, keynote, instructor, moderator, and invited guest, I speak and/or lead conversations at a variety of events and venues around the U.S. My topics have ranged from entrepreneurship, innovation, and education to professional development and the value of diversity in business and technology.

I would love to connect with and speak with you regarding technology and business opportunities. Contact me for business related issues at mj@undergridnetworks.com or to aid in my passion to support women in tech.

UnderGrid Networks:

Information, Infrastructure and Intelligence. We excel at building custom solutions to support intelligent decisions. Our products and services gather the data, analyzes it, then processes it through a fully integrated processes utilizing symbolic AI, Blockchain, Machine Learning and Deep learning approaches. We create the Intelligent Enterprise.”

November 8 Speaker

Speaker: Joel Krieger

Date: November 8th

Time: 1-2 pm

Topic: AI: Responsive Spaces & Immersive Experiences

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Company: Second Story

Job title: Chief Creative Officer

Education:

  • The University of Georgia
    • BFA, Interdisciplinary Studies, Magna Cum Laude
      • 1996 – 2000
    • Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A), Fine/Studio Arts, General
      • 1996 – 2000

LinkedIn About:

I am endlessly fascinated by what can be accomplished through collaboration. When radically different ideas and people collide, wonderful things can happen.
In our line of work the experiences we create are extraordinarily complicated. And the challenges facing humanity — exponentially more so. To design a new future, we must create new ways of working together. I believe this is the great challenge of our time. This is what makes my work meaningful. And this is why I love what I do.
Let’s make something amazing together.

Joel Krieger is Chief Creative Officer at Second Story. There, he leads interdisciplinary teams in a collaborative, lab-based approach to design — centered on the emerging category of responsive environments. As creative lead across three studios, Joel is focused on exploring new methods of making that merge the fields of experience design, visual design, animation, visual effects, industrial design, and architecture. His work spans the gamut of both cultural and brand spaces — transforming passive audiences into active participants. Joel graduated with honors from the University of Georgia, Lamar Dodd School of Art with a BFA in interdisciplinary studies. His work has been recognized for design excellence by The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), Communication Arts, HOW Design, the Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD), The Webby Awards, the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) and The American Alliance of Museums (AAM).

 

Second Story About:

Second Story is a network of Experience Design Studios. They are creative catalysts and technology optimists who start with story and architect for emotion. Part of Publicis Sapient, they have over 25 years of success in partnering and innovating with the world’s leading brands and institutions and more than 500 awards to prove it. They build unforgettable immersive environments that seamlessly blend the digital and physical worlds. Their projects can live in the palm of your hand or take over a city block from one night of action to a decade of immersive engagement. From digital prototypes to physical builds, they deliver experience-first master planning, environmental design & development, experiential marketing.

November 1 Speaker

Speaker: Ankur Karla
Date: November 1st
Time: 1-2 pm

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Topic: James Bond using AI
Works For: Hop Labs

Job title: Founder
Education:
University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign
Masters of Science, Computer Science
2004-2006

Georgia Institute of Technology
-BS, Computer Science
2001-2004

Experience as founder of Hop Labs

Hop Labs is a “hard-tech” consultancy based out of Atlanta, GA. We work on production-grade machine-learning and distributed systems problems, and help early-stage startups and some established brands. Our active hard-tech practice areas include:

Machine Learning:

We help existing businesses with ML-appropriate problems find scalable solutions across the lifecycle of their ML system. We have proprietary tools that help with data collection and management, data augmentation, experiment management, and model evaluation. We also have turn-key solutions to vend models and deploy them in the wild at scale. Our clients have ranged from non-technical domain experts looking for someone to handle everything, to well-staffed ML teams looking for an outside perspective and support.

Distributed Systems:

We help existing tech teams take ownership of their operational challenges and find scalable solutions to existing problems they’re facing. Our assistance here has ranged from high-level advisory services for multi-national consumer brands to tactical implementation assistance for tricky problems faced by much younger companies.

Product Studio:

Our initial practice area helps early-stage startups bring innovative new products to market. We work with them to identify the risks in their strategy, to figure out what concrete steps they can take to drive down those risks, and what the most efficient path is to their next meaningful milestone. Our clients here have been both venture-backed and self-funded, but are all early stage — though we’ve every faith they’ll soon be household names.

 

October 25 Speaker

Speaker: James Martin

Topic: Head Shot- How Machine Learning is Creating the Faces of the Future

Company: IClone

Date: October 25, 2019

Time: 1 – 2: 00 PM

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Job Title: Limited Term Professor of Practice Creative Media Industries Institute at Georgia State University

 

Linkedin About: 

My involvement in professional animation services began in 1999. My first Art Director position in Hollywood, Florida introduced me to the challenges of managing other creative individuals. During this time, Reallusion developed iClone and this changed the world of 3D real-time animation production. I became the 1st certified trainer in the United States to teach iClone in 2005 and would come to use these and other solutions to provide the world’s largest corporate talent assessment firm, located in Alpharetta, Georgia, (CEB) Corporate Executive Board, my services as Lead Animator and produced over 200 hours of animation for entities such as the OPM (Office of Personnel Management, US Government.) I was the character animator for Georgia produced “Survivors Remorse” for STARZ network and worked closely with Jon Stewart for HBO. I was honored to be the Motion Capture Lead and Previz Artist on”Replicas” from Lotus Entertainment, starring Keanu Reeves and Thomas Middleditch, distributed by Entertainment Studios. I am now representing Georgia State University and the Creative Media Industries Institute (CMII) training students in emerging technologies and virtual production techniques, utilizing real-time animation tools, with Opti-Track optical capture systems, XSens, Perception Neuron and Rokoko inertia-based motion capture suits / Motive, MVN Studio, Axis Neuron software. Recently, I became a virtual cinematographer using 4DViews Volumetric motion capture systems and the HoloSys pipeline to create “next-media” content generation and to enable the next-gen workforce with the tools they will need to be effective in the field, while integrating the Reallusion eco-system of tools with Unity, Unreal, HTC Vive, Oculus, Magic Leap and Holo-Lens. This development has combined all my technical application and art direction efforts to engage a new approach to content development and media evolution.

 

Experience: 

Aug 2017 – Present

  • Limited-Term Professor of Practice Creative Media Industries Institute
    • Georgia State University College of Arts & Sciences
      • As a Limited-Term Professor of Practice specializing in VR / AR production and asset creation at the CMII, a variety of roles are administered in direct relation to this position, including 2D / 3D Production Artist / Animator, Motion Capture Actor/Technician (Optical, Sensor-Based, Volumetric), Storyteller, Concept Artist, 360 Filmmaker, Public Speaker and Live Demo talent. All of these job description aspects are on display with my work at the Creative Media Industries Institute for students to gain full access to software training knowledge and hardware integration with emerging technologies.
  • Companies represented on behalf of CMII / GSU since Q3 2017
    • Reallusion
    • 4Dviews
    • OptiTrack
    • Faceware
    • XSens
    • Noitom
    • Rokoko
    • Leap Motion
    • VertaGear. Inertia-Based
    • Optical
    • Volumetric Motion Capture Supervisor, Engineer and Artist.
  • Trade shows and Industry Events attended on behalf of CMII / GSU since Q3 2017
    • Hacking Arts 2017 (MIT)
    • Technical Lecture Series 2017 (SVA – NYC)
    • Siggraph 2017 (award)
    • Future X Live (Moxie) 2017
    • A3C Hip Hop Conference 2017
    • Game Developers Conference 2018
  • Coordinator and Host of the ASIAGraph Reallusion Awards 2018 48hr Animation Jam presented by the Creative Media Industries Institute in Atlanta, Georgia.
  • Lead Facial Animator

Apr 2019 – Present 

  • Proxi / Method Studios
  • Pinewood Studios – ATLANTA – El Dorado
  • 2nd Unit – Lead Facial Animator and XSens Motion Capture Engineer – Virtual Production creative working directly with the 1st Unit to develop high-level pre-production materials and previz media.
  • iClone and CrazyTalk Certified Trainer
  • Lotus Entertainment – REPLICAS

Jul 2006 – Present 

  • VFX previz production for stunts along with Motion Capture for post CGI and stunts.