Karim Beguir - Afrikan Heroes

Tunisian AI Startup InstaDeep Sets Up First US Office In Boston

May 24, 2022

InstaDeep, a leader in advanced AI decision-making systems for tackling real-world challenges, has announced the opening of its first U.S. office in the dynamic Cambridge, Massachusetts Life Sciences Research and Innovation Center.

The new R&D base of InstaDeep will enable the AI startup to collaborate with the surrounding academic community and some of the world’s most inventive and prominent enterprises and organizations.

InstaDeep selected the Kendall Square Innovation District in the Boston metropolitan area, which has been regarded as “the most innovative square mile on the world,” due to the district’s high number of startups and the quality of innovation that has evolved in the area. It is the most recent addition to the AI company’s global network of offices, which spans from London to Paris and includes Tunis, Lagos, Dubai, and Cape Town.

Co-founder and CEO of InstaDeep, Karim Beguir, stated: “The opening of our first office in the United States is a major step in InstaDeep’s global expansion. The Kendall Square wave of AI and biotechnology innovation and new firms is very motivating, and InstaDeep looks forward to engaging with the Cambridge, Massachusetts community.”

Thomas Pierrot, head of research in the United States, who previously managed the company’s research team in Paris, will lead the office. His research combines bioinformatics, evolutionary techniques, and deep reinforcement learning. In addition to presenting findings at key AI conferences, Pierrot contributed to the development of InstaDeep’s DeepChainTM protein design platform and early warning system to discover probable high-risk variants of SARS-CoV -2, which were co-developed by InstaDeep and BioNTech.

During the grand opening of the new office, Karim Beguir held a fireside chat with Wade Roush, host of Soonish’s Deep Tech podcasts and MIT Technology Review, to discuss the history of InstaDeep and answer questions. inquiries from students, academics, and executives in the community of Kendall Square.

InstaDeep assists businesses in accelerating operations by leveraging AI technologies such as reinforcement learning, a type of machine learning that enables neural networks to rapidly learn from simulations and focus on the most effective optimization strategies for a variety of problems, such as therapeutic development, rail operations, etc. InstaDeep and BioNTech run a combined AI innovation lab that employs machine learning to explore new immunotherapies for a variety of malignancies and infectious disorders. In addition to working with Google on AI-related projects, InstaDeep has published joint research with DeepMind and Google Research. In addition, InstaDeep is collaborating with Deutsche Bahn, the largest rail operator and infrastructure owner in Germany, to automate rail routing.

The company formed in Africa, which has been listed among the world’s 100 most innovative startups by CB Insights for three consecutive years, will also use its new US location to mentor and teach students, providing them internships and part-time positions. while encouraging diversity and inclusiveness in the realm of artificial intelligence.

InstaDeep Boston InstaDeep Boston

E-Health Startup Zuri Plans Expansion and New Product Launch

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh

Newly Funded Tunisian AI Startup InstaDeep Launches In The United States.

May 8, 2022

InstaDeep, a Tunisian business specializing in deep learning, will soon establish a presence in the United States. Karim Beguir, the company’s co-founder and CEO, has confirmed this in a statement.

As of today, InstaDeep has offices in six different countries, including Tunisia, the United Kingdom (UK), France, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Nigeria, and South Africa.

Karim Beguir,CEO InstaDeep — Karim Beguir, CEO InstaDeep

The company’s future US branch will be the company’s first office in North America. The startup market in the United States is vast, but it is also quite competitive. When InstaDeep enters this industry, they may be provided with more opportunities to scale.

A Look At What InstaDeep Does

Founded in 2014 by Karim Beguir and Zohra Slim, InstaDeep uses advanced machine learning techniques to bring AI to applications within an enterprise environment.

The AI and machine learning capabilities of the eight-year-old company, according to Beguir, tackle a variety of problems. They can range from a huge shipping corporation attempting to figure out how to transfer thousands of containers efficiently to a railway station with over 30,000 kilometers of track seeking to automate 10,000 train schedules. Designing sophisticated therapies with silicon and arranging components on a printed circuit board are two further examples.

In late November last year, the startup built an early warning system (EWS) in partnership with Google for detecting high-risk SARS-CoV-2 variants, which was one of its best efforts. According to a report from the Financial Times, this EWS discovered more than 90% of World Health Organization (WHO) designated variations two months ahead of time on average, and spotted Omicron three days before it was categorized as a variant of concern by the WHO.

Beguir claimed the startup started with just “two computers, $2,000, and a lot of passion,” with many investors and observers in the African tech and AI industry dismissing InstaDeep’s ambition to partner with the likes of DeepMind and Google.

InstaDeep now employs more than 170 people. More than 130 people work in AI research, engineering, machine learning, and DevOps, with half of the team based in South Africa, Nigeria, and Tunisia.

Instadeep United States Instadeep United States

Started With Just $2K, Tunisian AI Startup InstaDeep Lands $100M From Google, BioNTech

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh

Tunisian Startup, InstaDeep, Launches #IndabaGrandChallenge For The cure of Leishmaniasis

June 29, 2020

Tunisian startup, “InstaDeep”, which is in the top 100 of the best companies in Artificial Intelligence, co-organizes with the organization “INDABA”, a big challenge called “#IndabaGrandChallenge”, for the identification of a treatment for Leishmaniasis.

“Leishmaniasis is a neglected disease. As a disease of poverty, it has historically received limited funding for discovery, development and delivery of new tools. Current treatment is costly, lengthy, painful and sometimes toxic. At the same time, new drug candidates are being developed and old ones are being tested every day. Today, millions of drug activity assays are available at the press of a button. In this Indaba Grand Challenge, we dare to ask you to help identify amongst the already known, tested and (often) approved drugs, potential cures for different forms of leishmaniasis,” the startup said in a press release.

Here Is What You Need To Know

The organizers of this initiative are seeking, in collaboration with Deep Learning “INDABA”, to propose a new treatment, comprising a Leishmania protein (either of a defined species, or a protein present in the proteome of one or more Leishmania species) and a small molecule (or set of small molecules).
The initiative targets experts passionate about data science or Machine Learning, people active in “bioinformatics and pathformatics”, researchers, practitioners and clinicians of kinetoplastids as well as Universities, institutes and research organizations.
Leishmaniasis is a chronic disease with cutaneous and / or visceral manifestation, kills each year more than 50 thousand people in Africa, Middle East and Latin America.
It affects 12 million people in nearly 90 countries on our planet. Each year more than 2 million new cases appear.
The #IndabaGrandChallenge thus brings together civil society, the community of doctors, chemical epidemiologists but also datascientists, for a single mission: to find a medicine to cure this disease.

How To Apply

To know more about #IndabaGrandChallenge, including how to apply, click here.

About InstaDeep

Founded in 2014 in Tunis, Tunisia, by Karim Beguir and Zohra Slim, InstaDeep is now based in London and has offices in Paris, Tunis, Nairobi and Lagos.
The start-up applies deep reinforcement learning and other advanced machine learning techniques to create AI (Artificial Intelligence) systems that can help companies make better business decisions in the industrial environment, according to the same source.
The start-up InstaDeep has managed to establish an excellent reputation by providing “solid and unique” AI solutions.
It is one of the first African startups to publish original AI research at the conference on machine learning and computer neuroscience Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2018).
The startup was also one of eight companies selected from the 84th international selection jury of Endeavor.
The Tunisian company has been ranked by the famous analysis firm CB Insights, which lists startups from 13 countries, in its top 100 of the best companies.

About INDABA

The Deep Learning organization “INDABA”, has the mission to strengthen machine learning and artificial intelligence in Africa.
The word INDABA indicates in the Zolo language, a gathering or a meeting to share and listen to the news of the community in Southern Africa and to consult on questions of common interest.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer