Influential Businesswoman Awards 2024, Acquisition International | 31 AI Start-Up Founder of the Year 2024: Dr. Sue Abu-Hakima AI is everywhere now, being used ubiquitously across industries, prominent in the public eye. It’s a tool that is advancing swiftly, too swiftly at times for regulations to keep up, with governments acting retroactively and behind its relentless pace. Yet, AI continues to be utilised by new businesses and new sectors every day, finding new ways to increase efficiency, productivity, and output. The technology’s development is, in most cases, a benefit. Though with that benefit comes a cost, and that is, in the rush to use this technology it may be used improperly, in unsafe ways and by bad actors. Sue is all too aware of a need to tackle this potential danger head on, and so Alstari Corporation was born. “The vision of the company will be to save lives, focusing on the required and upcoming regulatory compliance of introducing AI. Alstari Corporation’s goal will be to help organisations become compliant with new regulations targeting the secure and safe use of AI. The solutions Alstari will provide are based on decades of expertise in safely delivering advanced AI products and services to the market by its teams. Alstari can ensure that products and services in organisations are reviewed for strict upcoming AI regulatory compliance.” But Alstari Corporation was not Sue’s first foray into AI, far from it. With both a Masters in AI in Explanation, earned in 1988 with honours, and a PhD in Automatic Diagnosis in 1994, also with honours, it would be fair to call Sue a leading expert in AI. With this expertise as a firm foundation, she has an established history of founding companies who utilise the technology, alongside her Co-Founder/CTO Ken Grigg. Both were cofounders of Amika Mobile which exited to NASDAQ-traded Genasys Inc. in 2020. Both had also exited together as Founder CEO and CTO/CIO of the AmikaNow! Corporation to NASDAQ-traded Entrust in 2004. To call Sue a serial entrepreneur seems almost an understatement. She has had an undeniable role in the formation of the AI industry today and secured a firm place in its history. I tell women to be very realistic when they launch ventures. I tell them to expect bias in every aspect. But they must persevere if they want to succeed. With these experiences under her belt, Sue endeavoured to write a book to aid other entrepreneurs in turn, passing down her knowledge and hard-earned lessons, as she continues. “I have a just-published book and it has many lessons learned in it for entrepreneurs. It is entitled ‘ENTREPRENEUR Heretic or Hero of Innovation? Lessons from two-time successful AI Tech Startup Entrepreneur’ by Dr. Suhayya Abu-Hakima. It is available on Amazon.com. I wrote this book to help all entrepreneurs learn from my lessons – both good and bad – how to set up a business and make it succeed in tech and more specifically AI tech. The book was completed over a 2.5-year period, internally and externally reviewed by investors and mentors as well as a book coach. The book also speaks to my journey and background as individuals are always asking me how I could have founded and run two successful AI companies with a third underway over the last two decades before the exponential focus on AI of the last couple of years.” With the rise in AI and a promise that its presence will only continue to grow, Sue and Alstari Corporation are in for a busy few years. For Sue, the focus will be in continuing to raise her voice and work with organisations for greater security and safety in the use of AI. “I have given at least two speeches a month thus far in 2024 educating various groups on both the opportunity and the danger of leaving AI unbridled,” she adds, before continuing. “I am excited by the application of AI in healthcare, and we have seen new accuracies in relation to imaging for areas such as cancer. We are also seeing new drug inventions because of AI. However, I am very concerned with the criminal element leveraging AI and I believe every organisation needs to protect its networks and data stores from bad actors leveraging AI. “I have been very successful in both my AI startups thus far, as well as my research career in AI labs before that. My crystal ball has me continuing to help other entrepreneurs by having them leverage my lessons learned crystalised in my book.” Company Name: Alstari Corporation Contact Name: Dr. Sue Abu-Hakima Address: Alstari Corporation, Suite 208, 150 Katimavik Road, Ottawa, ON, K2L 2N2, Canada Web Address: www.alstari.com Contact Email: [email protected] There can be no doubt that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a global goliath, influencing hundreds of industries. Its impact is vast, and with that impact comes a high possibility of poor deployment and ill-considered utilisation as businesses rush to make use of this shiny, new toy. Alstari Corporation was launched to address an urgent need – to secure safe AI deployment. We spoke with Co-Founder and serial entrepreneur Dr. Sue Abu-Hakima to find out more on the back of her recognition in the programme. “ ”
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