This article highlights a revolutionary new approach to offering Ultra-Personalised, Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Healthcare from Cortex Logic which is set to transform the way medical aid schemes, consumers and corporates offering employee benefits as part of their EAP (Employee Assistance Programmes) view their current healthcare offering. The Journey Wellness platform is perfectly timed to coincide with the current global shift in Healthcare, as the focus moves from a disease-management model to one that encourages optimum health and disease-avoidance, targeting younger as well as existing members with a holistic, pro-active offering. Journey Wellness was also recently introduced through the articles "Access To AI-Driven Platforms Can Improve Health And Financial Wellness – Cortex Group" and "This New AI-Enabled, Personalised Healthcare Platform Wants To Revolutionize Wellness & Healthcare In SA" as well as a number of presentations and interviews by Dr Jacques Ludik, Founder and CEO of Cortex Logic and President of the Machine Intelligence Institute of Africa MIIA, who has also recently written a book called'Democratizing Artificial Intelligence to Benefit Everyone'. He says that the Journey Wellness platform will provide more healthcare, to more people, faster. Dr Ludik explained that its AI-enabled, ultra-personalized health wellness platform, called Journey Wellness here in South Africa, provides real-time, relevant, on-demand and proactive guidance, advice, support and recommendations to help optimize a user's wellness whilst ensuring high standards of data privacy and choice. The system makes use of the Cortex AI engine to build a holistic and dynamic 360-degree wellness profile and has an AI-driven personalized wellness coach that provides information and personalized advice, coaching and guidance with respect to healthy eating and diet, exercise and fitness, mental wellness and health with a specific focus on chronic lifestyle diseases.

Dr Jacques Ludik is a smart technology entrepreneur, AI expert, investor & ecosystem builder and currently Founder & President of Machine Intelligence Institute of Africa (MIIA), Founder & CEO of Cortex Logic, Founder of Bennit AI, Founder of SynerG, The Talent Index, & aiTRADE Systems, and investor in The Student Hub (ERAOnline). He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science (AI) with many publications and has 25 years' experience in Machine / Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Data Science and its applications. MIIA is an innovative community & accelerator for Machine Intelligence & Data Science Research & Applications to help transform Africa, whereas Cortex Logic is an AI company that provides an AI Engine for Business, advances AI and builds end-to-end AI solutions for a range of industries. Bennit A.I. is an intelligent virtual production assistant/advisor for manufacturing. For businesses to thrive in the smart technology era, they need to be agile, innovative and adapt quickly to stay relevant, given the swift pace of change and disruption to business and society.

The SA Innovation Summit as an annual flagship event on the South African Innovation Calendar, is a platform for nurturing, developing and showcasing African innovation, as well as facilitating innovation thought-leadership. Created to support and promote innovation and facilitate collaboration within its own eco-system, the initiative brings together corporates, thought leaders, inventors, entrepreneurs, academia and policy makers to amplify South Africa's renowned competitive edge and to inspire sustained economic growth across the continent of Africa. The outcomes achieved by the Summit, is a powerful platform to bring together thought leaders and accelerate innovation in South Africa, and into the African continent as whole. MIIA ill also be represented at the South African Innovation Summit and invitethe MIIA community to also join the 48-hour hackathon being held in Cape Town Stadium from 5 - 7 September 2017.

In a recent post about Deep Learning applications, platforms, limitations and quantum computing we have announced a panel discussion on "How Artificial Intelligence is disrupting Industries" which took place on 25 May 2017 in Cape Town. This event was hosted by Far Ventures, a start-up studio and incubator that aims to foster technology entrepreneurship in Africa by founding and growing start-ups that can positively impact people's lives through technology. It was also supported by the Machine Intelligence Institute of Africa (MIIA), an innovative community and accelerator for Machine Intelligence and Data Science Research and Applications to help transform Africa. This post includes the links to the introductory presentation as well as the video of the panel discussion. Photos of the MIIA event can be found here. Photos of the MIIA event can be found here.

As a smart technology entrepreneur with a machine intelligence research background and passionate about advancing the state-of-the-art in machine or artificial intelligence (AI) to help solve real-world problems, it is very encouraging and exciting to see the AI buzz in the tech industry right now, the progress made in the field to create an even stronger intelligence toolbox, and the ever increasing practical applications in all industries and enterprise functions. Machine intelligence is not only changing the way we use our computers and smartphones but the way we interact with the real world. It is also one of the key exponential technologies in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Given how all the major technology companies are embracing machine intelligence as a core part of their business and the multitude of startups building their business on this technology, AI is clearly not a passing fad, but being pushed across the rest of the tech world too. In this post I'm not only addressing some key topics about the current and future state of machine intelligence, but also practical steps we are taking here in Africa to not only use smart technology to solve problems, but also make a contribution towards advancing the-state-of-the-art in machine intelligence.