Engineer · Educator · Tech Philosopher
AI, Cognitive Science, Happier Human Societies
Eleanor 'Nell' Watson is a Machine Intelligence specialist, educator, and tech philosopher who grew up in Northern Ireland.
She helped to develop pioneering Machine Vision techniques at her company Poikos (now QuantaCorp), which enables fast and accurate body measurement from two photos. Later she decided to teach these techniques to others, as author of Machine Intelligence coursebooks for O'Reilly Media.
Nell serves as Vice-Chairman of the IEEE P7001 Committee creating new safety standards for autonomous systems, and Chair of Transparency Experts Focus Group at the IEEE Standards Association Ethics Certification Programme. She is also the Co-Founder and Chairman of EthicsNet.org, a community teaching pro-social behaviors to machines.
She serves as a Senior Scientific Advisor to The Future Society at Harvard, and holds Fellowships with the British Computing Society, and Royal Statistical Society, among others.
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“A powerful, informative, innovative thoughtful and thoroughly-inspiring presentation.”
“Wow! What an inspiring presentation: thought-provoking and enjoyable.”
“Thank you for the impeccable presentation. You are an amazing speaker and the entire audience was spellbound listening to you talk.”
“Rare to hear and AI expert with such profound cultural & social understanding as Nell Watson”
“The energy levels at the event were sky high; fantastic feedback from attendees. It was a genuinely provocative, and brilliantly presented talk - you could hear a pin drop in the room.”
“We were very happy with Nell Watson. She was really impressive with many pertinent examples, and really thought about what would be relevant to us. Very happy with it! ”
“Nell Watson blew the whole crowd away with intelligence, humanity, insight, and complex thinking. Just epic. The world needs more Nell.”
“Amazing presentation by @NellWatson. Her lessons for the future have left me both humbled and inspired.”
“Shout out to futurist, Nell Watson, who delivered an incredibly captivating and polished keynote that had the attention of the whole auditorium.”
“What an amazing finish by @NellWatson. Too many amazing ideas! An absolute inspiration.”
“Best presentation of the whole day. THE most amazing, inspiring speaker, with a smart, eloquent call for a renaissance of the heart. Thank you!”
“Nell put each person in an envelope in which knowledge and insights have been lavishly scattered around. The interview afterwards also testified of expertise. Giving a talk is one thing; giving a Q &A afterwards and giving new insights is something else. In a busy world full of stimuli and speed, Nell’s talk was a relief, a resting point, a moment of pure contemplation”