Blockchain business intelligence firm Coinalytics announced that it has rebranded as Skry and added two experienced technologists in Big Data, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to its leadership team. The new hire and branding is part of move to transform the firm’s blockchain analytics platform into a solution for the general financial services industry.
As the new CTO, the company has hired Akash Singh, former CTO Data Science at Huawei & Chief Researcher/Architect at IBM. For Chief Data Scientist, Skry has picked up Masoud Nikravesh, a researcher with over 25 years of experience in the field of Artificial Intelligence as former Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) Director at CITRIS, UC Berkeley and Visiting Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Fabio Federici, co-founder and CEO at Skry, commented on the recruitment:
“We are honored to have Akash and Masoud join our team. Their extraordinary abilities in Big Data and Artificial Intelligence will prove to be an invaluable asset as we build and expand our business.”
Federici explained that the business intelligence firm’s rebranding was to signify a move beyond Bitcoin:
“The reasoning behind the rebranding is to highlight our vision to converge the Blockchain, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence into the most advanced analytics platform for enterprises and financial institutions. While our first solution is focused on compliance and anti-money laundering for the Bitcoin Blockchain, we are really developing a platform that can be deployed agnostically of the underlying Blockchain and can adapt to any domain.”
Singh will be leading the development of the blockchain-agnostic Skry platform. In the past, Singh developed petabyte scale parallel processing systems, analytics platforms and cluster monitoring tools. He holds a PhD in AI and is known for evangelizing the machine learning and probabilistic approach to AI and Big Data problems. Singh was the architect of such systems at IBM for over ten years.
Singh added:
“We are entering a new era of computing and Skry is developing cutting-edge technologies and solutions for the Blockchain industry - initially focusing on financial services.”
According to the company, Nikravesh will also contribute to the platform’s machine learning and AI capabilities. Over the past 25 years, his research has been focused on the development of novel algorithms for advanced predictive analytics and statistical analysis & modeling. His main focus has been on the application of soft computing and machine learning for pattern recognition, data mining & fusion with uncertain and incomplete information, as well as predictive, prescriptive and behavioral analytics. This includes risk analysis and prediction models such as credit risk scoring or anomaly detection for anti fraud solutions.
Nikravesh noted:
“Skry is at the forefront of applying Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to turn the Blockchain into actionable insights, which will have a crucial impact on the future of this technology, beyond Bitcoin.”
