Participants will have the opportunity to meet site leaders from Amazon Development Centers across Europe and experts from different areas of the company. The speakers will talk about their field of work and will offer a behind the scenes look at their sites, the products and services they are working on and the innovation process: How does Amazon’s process of “working backwards from the customer” work? How is Alexa getting smarter, and who taught her to speak? How do Amazon’s European teams use applied AI science in Europe, and how are these technologies rolled out at scale across the world? European leaders from Amazon’s global machine learning team, Alexa and many more will present their work. Our guests will also have the opportunity to visit one of our many European development centers, which is located in our London office.
Find out more about our keynote speakers at the European Innovation Day 2018:
Photo by Tobias Koch/Tobias Koch
Ralf Herbrich is Director Machine Learning Science at Amazon and Managing Director of the Amazon Development Center Germany in Berlin. He leads the global machine learning research of the company and is responsible for teams at several sites in the USA and Europe. Previously, he led the Unified Ranking and Allocation team at Facebook and he worked at Microsoft Research for eleven years. Ralf Herbrich has a diploma degree in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Statistics. He was Research Fellow of the Darwin College Cambridge from 2000 - 2003.
Doug Gurr is the UK Country Manager for Amazon, and is responsible for leading the company’s UK strategy, consumer e-commerce business, digital content and device offerings, as well as helping to guide Amazon’s UK innovation programs. Prior to his current role, Doug was China Country Manager for Amazon, having joined the company in 2011 as Vice President of the Hardlines division for Amazon.co.uk. Previously, he was an Executive Director at Asda, and before that was CEO of Blueheath Holdings, a company he founded and saw through to its listing on London’s AIM market. Earlier in his career, he was a partner at McKinsey, & Co. Doug is currently Chairman of the British Heart Foundation and a Trustee of the Landmark Trust. He has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Theoretical Computing from the University of Edinburgh.
Katrin Korten started to work for Amazon in 2000 as part of the pan-EU Customer Service team in The Hague, Netherlands. Over the years, she held various different positions in different countries at Amazon, primarily in Program and Product Management roles: Customer service in the Netherlands and the UK, Transportation in Scotland and Luxembourg, Security and Amazon Transport Services in Seattle (US) and with Amazon Logistics in Luxembourg. She currently manages a team of Technical Program Managers (TPMs) which launches the latest tech products across the EU.
Neil Lawrence is Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Sheffield. He is currently on leave of absence based at Amazon in Cambridge where he is a Director of Machine Learning. Neil’s main research interest is machine learning through probabilistic models. He focuses on both the algorithmic side of these models and their application. His recent focus has been on the deployment of machine learning technology in practice, particularly under the banner of data science. He is also the co-host of the Talking Machines podcast.
Photo by william beaucardet
Fabrice Rousseau is passionate about changing customers’ daily lives with technology. His team helps European brands and developers create exciting voice experiences for their customers, enhancing the capabilities of Amazon Alexa. Fabrice joined Amazon eight years ago, launching and growing Amazon Fashion in France, then in Europe.
Learn more about Amazon’s approach to innovation in our stories from all over Europe:
