Angelo Dalli

Angelo Dalli (born 14 April 1978) is a computer scientist specialising in artificial intelligence, a serial entrepreneur, and business angel investor.[4][5][6]

Angelo Dalli
Angelo Dalli in 2018
Born (1978-04-14) 14 April 1978
Pietà, Malta
NationalityMaltese
Education
Known for
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
ThesisTimeline and Named Entity Extraction for Hyperlinked Corpora (2010)
Doctoral advisorYorick Wilks
Websitemedium.com/@angelodalli

Early life and education

Dalli was born in Malta and grew up in the town of Birżebbuġa. Dalli was educated at the Archbishop's Seminary, Malta and represented Malta in the Young European Environmental Research contest held in Cologne in 1994. Dalli represented Malta in the International Olympiad in Informatics held in Eindhoven in 1995, where he won a bronze medal.[3] Dalli started selling computer software as a teenager,[5] and worked for the International Data Group as a freelance contributor for PC World.[7]

Academic work

After graduating from the University of Malta, Dalli spent time lecturing on artificial intelligence and natural language processing[8] before reading for his PhD at the University of Sheffield under the supervision of Yorick Wilks. Dalli has published over 20 peer reviewed papers in the artificial intelligence and natural language processing fields, including one of the earliest methods on timestamp extraction from documents that is now commonly used in most email applications.[9][10][11] Angelo has also contributed to the encoding of European languages in Unicode, in particular for the Common Locale Data Repository.[12]

In the field of Bioinformatics Dalli has found a particularly useful integer sequence (sequence A062208 in the OEIS) which efficiently computes all alignments of strings of length 3 together with other generalisations (sequence A062204 in the OEIS), (sequence A062205 in the OEIS) for applications in natural language and sequence alignment.

Dalli has led the Maltese national informatics team in the International Olympiad in Informatics at IOI 2002 in Seoul, South Korea and IOI 2004 in Athens, Greece.[3][13][14]

Artificial intelligence

Ethical AI

Angelo has been a vocal proponent of ethical AI[15][16] that impacts society positively and believes that AI should be properly regulated. Angelo has been appointed by the Government of Malta on the taskforce that produced Malta's new AI regulation and national AI strategy,[17][18] and is an active member of the AAAI, ACM and the ACL.

AI in transport

Angelo had led the introduction of different machine learning techniques in intelligent transport systems (ITS), including parking,[19] controlled vehicle access zones[20] and dynamic traffic interchange control.[21] His intelligent transport company, Traffiko, operated in Europe, Australia and the Middle East, and was eventually sold to Q-Free in Norway in 2015.[22]

AI in gaming

Angelo is a well known speaker in the online gambling industry.[23]

Angelo setup one of the first companies that applied artificial intelligence in the online gambling industry, called Bit8 (now part of Intralot),[24] with the most notable work being on algorithms that estimate and maximise player lifetime value and personalised bonusing systems.[25] These techniques have since been widely adopted by the online gambling industry[26][27] Intralot subsequently bought Bit8 in 2017.[28]

AI in art

Angelo has been collaborating with the Maltese artist Mark Mallia via his AI company Umnai to teach AI about creativity. The results of this collaboration is the Uma AI entity, short for Universal Machine Artist. Uma has been taught how to paint by Mark Mallia, and is creating original artwork using a modified Generative adversarial network that has a third component, the human artist, to produce different learning results than a standard GAN. [29][30] The underlying discriminator in Uma started from an anti-fraud detection system. The first two artworks generated by Uma were auctioned in October and November 2018 respectively, with all proceeds donated to charity and good causes.[31][32][33]

Angel investor

Angelo is an angel investor active in the high-tech startup scene,[34][35][6] and is a member of EBAN, and World Business Angel Forum senator.[36] Angelo has been encouraging Maltese startups via various public events including the Zest[37] and Budding Rockstars[38] conferences and co-founded BAM, the Malta Business Angel network, in 2019.[39]

Awards and Honours

Entrepreneurial and scientific

Corporate awards
  • Intralot Bit8 EGR Rising Star Award (2014)[40][41]
  • Intralot Bit8 Malta Communication Authority eBusiness Award for the Best B2B application (2015)[42]
  • Intralot Bit8 Malta iGaming Award for Excellence (2017)[43]

References
  1. "Angelo Dalli awarded Chairman Value Award 2019". MBR. Retrieved 10 Aug 2020.
  2. "MSV Life Top Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2014". The Malta Independent. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
  3. "Angelo Dalli". International Olympiad in Informatics. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  4. Angelo Dalli publications indexed by Google Scholar
  5. "From Maths Olympiad To Global Artificial Intelligence Player: The Rise And Rise Of Malta's Little-Known Tech Wizard". Lovin Malta. 2018-05-24.
  6. "Angelo Dalli Bio". 111 Holdings. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  7. "When science and technology meet". Times of Malta. 2014-04-22.
  8. "Angelo Dalli". University of Malta. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  9. "Angelo Dalli UoM Homepage". University of Malta. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  10. "Angelo Dalli Publications". DBLP. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  11. "Angelo Dalli Google Scholar". Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  12. "Unicode CLDR Acknowledgements". Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  13. "Informatics students at S. Korean olympiad". Times of Malta. 2002-08-20.
  14. "Malta wins bronze in informatics Olympiad". Times of Malta. 2004-09-20.
  15. "The use of AI in our daily life, exclusive interview with Angelo Dalli". Picante Media. 2018-08-21.
  16. "Brave, new (and slightly scary) world". Malta Today. 2018-11-11.
  17. "Malta.ai Taskforce Members". Government of Malta. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  18. "After Becoming The Blockchain Island, Malta Announces It's Formulating National AI Strategy". Forbes. 2018-11-01.
  19. "Driving change: a leader in smart road technologies". Malta Profile. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  20. Ison, Stephen G.; Attard, Maria (2010). "The implementation of road user charging and the lessons learnt: the case of Valletta, Malta". Journal of Transport Geography. 18 (1): 14–22. doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2009.05.009.
  21. "Ambitious growth drive by transport IT systems firm". Times of Malta. 2012-05-20.
  22. "Q-Free acquires parking management solutions company". ITS International. 2015-05-15.
  23. "Angelo Dalli articles". Calvin Ayre. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  24. "Innovation in iGaming Profiles: Bit8". Calvin Ayre. 2014-08-29.
  25. "Cover Story: Angelo Dalli" (PDF). SIGMA. 2016-04-01.
  26. "MCA Feature on Bit8 Platform". Malta Communications Authority. 2016-03-21.
  27. "Working Smarter". Times of Malta. Retrieved 2016-07-01.
  28. "Intralot buys 35 pct stake in Bit8". Reuters. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  29. "Maltese Artist Auctions Off One Of The World's First Robot Paintings For A Huge Sum Of Money". Lovin Malta. 2018-10-31.
  30. "Maltese Artist Auctions Off 'Evolved' Robot Painting For €18,000: 'It's Like She's In My Soul'". Lovin Malta. 2018-11-29.
  31. "Art vs. Artificial – a world-first auction of a human-AI art part". Malta Blockchain Summit. 2018-10-24.
  32. "But is it art? Maltese artist Mark Mallia teaches AI system rudiments of painting". Malta Today. 2018-10-28.
  33. "Art vs. Artificial". Medium.com. 2018-10-26.
  34. "AngelList – Malta Investors". AngelList. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  35. "Angelo Dalli Cover Story: For the love of Mathematics". SiGMA. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  36. "Zest: The Art of the Exit – Angelo Dalli". Retrieved 2020-04-01.
  37. "Zest: The Art of the Exit – Angelo Dalli". Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  38. "Malta's brightest youths turn tech entrepreneurs for a day". Times of Malta. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  39. "The first angel investor network of Malta launched by Dr Angelo Dalli". Angel Investor Review. Retrieved 2019-12-07.
  40. "Gaming Software's Rising Star". Malta Today. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
  41. "Two Maltese firms achieve global recognition for remote gaming technology and expertise". The Malta Independent. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
  42. "eBusiness Awards 2015 Winners". Malta Communications Authority. Retrieved 1 July 2016.
  43. "Gaming Malta 2017 Edition" (PDF). Country Profiler. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
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