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Juan M. Lavista Ferres is the Vice President and Chief Data Scientist of the Microsoft Al for Good Research Lab, which works with organizations and governments to solve all kinds of global problems related to health, climate change, and even war crimes. using artificial intelligence.

“Since the beginning of 2019, we have been working with organizations such as the United Nations and large hospitals such as Johns Hopkins and Shriners,” he said in an interview with La Opinión.

Lavista Ferres is born and raised in Uruguay where he studied computer science. He moved to the United States in 2001 to work at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC analyzing the impact of programs on reducing poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In 2009 he joined Microsoft to work on the Experimentation Platform (EXP), where he designed and ran randomized control experiments with different groups.

He also worked as part of Bing’s data mining team, where he led a group applying data mining, machine learning, statistical modeling, and large-scale online experimentation, as well as providing data services.

In his current job at Microsoft’s Al For Good Research Lab, Lavista Ferres said he brings his experience and knowledge of artificial intelligence and data to problem solving by working in partnership with subject matter experts from companies and governments.

He cited as an example the work they have done to analyze CT scans that help detect pancreatic cancer when the tumors are really small and measure two centimeters.

“Today, this type of cancer is discovered late when it is practically a death sentence, and it is very difficult to save a patient.”

He said that with the United Nations they are working to understand the Ukraine-Russia conflict by applying artificial intelligence to satellite images.

“Basically we monitor whether schools, hospitals and the energy, water and sanitation infrastructure in Ukraine have been destroyed. Attacking them is considered a war crime under the Geneva Convention.”

He has a master’s degree in data mining and machine learning from Johns Hopkins University and a doctorate in artificial intelligence applied to health from the Vrije University from Amsterdam. He currently lives in Seattle, from where he works for Microsoft Al for Good Research Lab.

“I always wanted to use my ability to help, I never imagined working for Microsoft. It has been an incredible opportunity and I am very grateful to Microsoft.”

Before joining Microsoft, he was CTO and co-founder of the startup alerts.com.

Lavista Ferres says that although these problems are diverse in terms of subject matter, from the point of view of artificial intelligence and data they are similar. “As long as we can work with data experts who understand these issues.”

And he considers that artificial intelligence is not something new since it has been used for three decades, but he says that it is normal for people to worry as has happened with any technological change in the world such as the arrival of computers and the Internet.

“The way we work changes, but not the amount of work. What it does is that we make better use of human capacities and that often means increasing the number of workers”.

For Latinos, he said that one of the biggest advantages that artificial intelligence will bring is the opportunity to be able to write English like a native. “It enables us to be able to work in English without being an expert. It has made a tremendous difference to me.”

One of the projects they are working on in Latin America is on retinopathy of premature babies to detect blindness in children born prematurely. “We work to help these kids not go blind. In Mexico, retinopathy is the main cause of blindness in children.

They also work in the Amazon to understand the issue of deforestation and illegal mining.

The projects in which he works Microsoft AI For Good Research Lab include AI For Earth, AI for Humanitarian Action, AI For Accessibility and AI For Heaheth.

Lavista Ferres also initiated Microsoft’s Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) efforts and her work has been published in leading academic journals, including pediatrics.

He is involved in the work to define the discipline of data science within Microsoft and is currently the editor of Microsoft Journal of Applied Research (MSJAR).

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