Od koła naukowego do spółki akcyjnej | Barbara Klaudel | TEDxPolitechnika Gdańska

Quick Overview

The speaker recounts her journey from a high school student interested in AI to co-founding Medallion Technology, a company developing an AI platform named TITAN to assess the malignancy of kidney tumors, ultimately raising 400,000 PLN for the project.

Key Points: The speaker, Barbara Klaudel, was inspired by the topic of Artificial Intelligence, which became widely discussed around 2016, and she always wanted to do something she could build herself. The team created the TITAN (Technology In Tumor Analysis) system, an AI tool designed to assess the malignancy of kidney tumors, which is crucial for deciding between observation and surgery. The project received funding of 400,000 PLN, which allowed the team to develop the system, including creating a library of DICOM files for anonymization. The speaker contrasted her early aspiration of becoming a veterinarian with her current focus on AI, emphasizing that the AI passion was a natural step after learning about the technology. The team, composed of students and scientists from the Gdańsk University of Technology, collaborated with urologists from a local hospital to solve the problem of unnecessary surgeries due to uncertain tumor diagnoses. The developed system achieved 95% accuracy in recognizing tumors as malignant or benign, potentially reducing unnecessary surgical procedures, which previously accounted for 20% of cases. The speaker encourages the audience to pursue their own passions, referencing the movie Fight Club quote, "The question, Reynolds, what did you want to be?" to prompt self-reflection.

Context: This TEDx talk, delivered by Barbara Klaudel at TEDxPolitechnika Gdańska, chronicles her path into developing artificial intelligence solutions for healthcare, specifically focusing on the creation of the TITAN system. The context revolves around addressing uncertainty in diagnosing kidney tumors, where current protocols often lead to unnecessary surgeries, and how her student project evolved into a funded startup, Medallion Technology.