Apart from the future full of potential, every startup has its background story that sets higher goals to the company’s path. Anari AI’s story started 5 years ago, within a community symbolically named – Wonderland AI.
Wonderland AI is an ecosystem raised around the idea of promoting and developing artificial intelligence. The main goal was to do it in an innovative way, using talent, enthusiasm and proactivity as the main drivers in building a new community on the global AI stage. Founded in 2016 by Jovan Stojanovic (CEO and co-founder of Anari AI as well), Wonderland AI became a stronghold of 5 entities that impact our future with AI: Wonderland AI Summit, Anari AI, Serbian AI Society, Angelico and CITY AI.
“I had a vision to build an ecosystem that will gather people with a specific mindset, ready to tackle the challenges that seemed untouchable. Beginning with just a vision, in the last 5 years I found the energy that the Wonderland AI ecosystem needed. We’ve gathered 5 entities developing AI, each from its specific domain.” says Jovan Stojanovic, the founder of the community that at the moment counts more than 30.000 AI enthusiasts from all over the world.
Wonderland AI Summit – a global dialog about artificial intelligence
From 2019, Serbia became famous for one more thing – an event that brought the global AI community to Serbia, to start a dialog about the latest AI trends, issues and predictions. This annual event has so far gathered more than 100 world-class speakers. Most of them are C-level executives in the companies that create the future of AI, like Huawei, Dell Technologies, Airbus, Google, NVIDIA, IBM, Mercedes-Benz and many others.
“I see AI as an important pillar for our future, and at this event you can learn and make connections”, said Julian Merten, Head of Data Science at Mercedes-Benz and one of the Wonderland AI Summit speakers.
The Summit combines technical programs with keynote talks, but what makes it unique is an opportunity to network with experts, researchers and influencers who are there to show how leading companies and organizations use AI. One of the most interesting things for the Summit attendees is a possibility to experience AI through various simulations present in the live edition of the event.
Filip Sretovic, General Manager of Wonderland AI Summit announced the 2021 edition, emphasizing that this year’s event will also host startups and VC funds: “Wonderland AI Summit provides a comprehensive approach to artificial intelligence. We’re really happy to be recognized as the event where companies, individuals and startups can find really useful examples and connections to improve their own businesses and ideas.” said Sretovic.
Wonderland AI Summit 2021 will be held online on 21st and 22nd October, and will include 4 stages, 120+ speakers, 50+ startups, 10+ leading VC funds and 100+ companies.
While we’re warming up for October, check out the keynote talks from Wonderland AI Summit 2020!
Serbian AI Society – research hub of Serbian AI experts and researchers
Serbian AI Society is an organization dedicated to research activities in the domain of artificial intelligence. It has more than 180 researchers with experience from universities and companies like Berkeley, MIT, DeepMind, Sorbonne, UCLA, Harvard, Google, etc.
“Our main goal is to make Serbian AI internationally recognized. We realized that there are many researchers and experts coming from Serbia, with enviable experience in the domain of AI. Working on AI in organizations all over the world, they’re contributing to research and development of AI in our country as well. I believe that Serbian AI Society will be one of the most important parts of the global AI community in the future.” said Stefan Sredojvic, co-founder of the Society and COO at Anari AI.
Serbian AI Society members are authors of many research papers in the field of AI, but their full contribution to the AI development is yet to come.
Check out the Serbian AI Society research archive!
Angelico – a brain research lab that helps people with mental disabilities
Angelico is an organization that puts artificial intelligence in service of helping people with special needs. The organization is founded with the goal to provide the most precise picture of how they see and experience the world around them. Based on brain research, Angelico can provide new AI solutions that will help people with autism or similar disabilities to be more included in society. That way, Angelico is bringing not only a solution, but also a new approach to treating issues around autism and similar disabilities.
CITY AI – promotion of AI through 80+ cities in the world
CITY AI is a worldwide organization presented in more than 80 cities, with the goal to encourage dialog about AI and its development. Jovan Stojanovic, one of the leaders of the organization, contributed to this community by including 7 Balkan cities in the global CITY AI network: Novi Sad AI, Belgrade AI, Zagreb AI, Sarajevo AI, Banja Luka AI, Skopje AI and Kragujevac AI.
Anari AI – a startup that builds world’s first online chip factory
Anari AI is the youngest, yet “the loudest” entity within the Wonderland AI ecosystem. In only two months, the startup raised a $2 million investment to build the world’s first chip factory. An investment came from Earlybird VC, one of the biggest VC funds in the world, that recognized Anari AI’s vision to create virtual chips accessible in just one click.
“Anari is a game changer in two ways: it removes the trade-off between performance and effort, and it makes AI-problem-specific chip solutions available instantaneously in the cloud. I am excited about this huge potential”, said Roland Manger, Founder and Partner at Earlybird VC.
Anari AI is a Serbian-based startup with an office in San Francisco. It’s founded by Jovan Stojanovic, Stefan Sredojevic and dr Bogdan Vukobratovic with the goal to democratize AI and respond to the most challenging problems in the hardware AI industry. Bogdan Vukobratovic is a creator of the PyGears, a new hardware description language that is a foundation for Anari AI platform.
“Anari AI platform is built on a unique Python-based programming framework that opens up new possibilities for hardware engineers and practically turns software engineers into hardware designers” said Bogdan, also adding that “the first configurable AI cloud chip on the platform is Anari AI’s Thor X, which is up to 10 times more performant than high-end GPU”.
The global team of Anari AI includes advisors with experience from NVIDIA, CERN, IBM, UC Berkeley, and UCLA, as well as Ph.D. researchers, machine learning experts, and senior software engineers. Roland Manger (Founder and Partner at Earlybird VC) and Sasha Ostojic (ex-VP at NVIDIA, ex-SVP at Cruise Automation, Advisor at Samsung Electronics and Zoox, and Operating Partner at Playground Global) are members of Anari’s Board of Directors, alongside Jovan Stojanovic. Advisors to the company are Christoph Auer-Welsbach (former Partner at IBM Ventures, Founder of CITY AI, and CEO of Kaizo) and Dejan Markovic (co-founder of Flex Logix and Professor at UCLA).
Read more: “Why we invested in Anari AI” – Roland Manger, Partner and Founder at Earlybird VC.
Making connections between people with curiosity and bravery to dream, Wonderland AI became an ecosystem that promotes not only AI, but the power of community in the first place. As Helen Keller said: “Alone, we can do so little. Together, we can do so much.” Right now, Wonderland AI is on its way to do so much for our future with AI – from Serbia, to the whole world.
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