Saffron Technology
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Saffron Technology, Inc., a technology company headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, develops cognitive computing systems that use incremental learning to understand and unify by entity (person, place or thing) the connections between an entity and other “things” in data, along with the context of their connections and their raw frequency counts. This approach provides a semantic and statistical representation of knowledge. Saffron learns from all sources of data including structured and unstructured data to support knowledge-based decision making. Its patented technology[1] captures the connections between data points at the entity level and stores these connections in an associative memory. Similarity algorithms and predictive analytics are then combined with the associative index to identify patterns in the data. Saffron’s Natural Intelligence platform is utilized by Global 1000 companies across industries including manufacturing, energy, defense and healthcare, to help decision-makers manage risks, identify opportunities and anticipate future outcomes, thus reducing cost and increasing productivity. Competitors include IBM Watson and Grok.
Contents
History
Saffron was founded in 1999 by Dr Manuel Aparicio, a recognized pioneer in the field of Associative Memories, and Mr. James Fleming, a software engineer and leader in intelligent agent development.[2]
In 2000, former National Security Advisor Admiral (Dr.) John Poindexter joined the board with a focus of applying Associative Memory technology in the fields of National Security and Intelligence[3]
In the first years, the company did most of its work with the U.S. Department of Defense, including in Iraq, analyzing and predicting where IED’s would be located so insurgent bombers could be proactively targeted.[4]
In 2010, the analyst firm Gartner identified Saffron as a "Cool Vendor" in Information Infrastructure for Enterprise Information Management [5]
In 2011, Forrester Research highlighted Saffron Technology as the leader of associative indexing in "The Dawning of a New Age in BI DBMS".[6]
On March 3, 2014 Saffron Technology raised a round of Series B funding.[7]
In October 2015, Intel bought Saffron Technology for an undisclosed price.[8]
Executives
Gayle Sheppard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; former executive at PeopleSoft, Pleasanton, CA. and J.D. Edwards and Company, Denver, CO.
Ian Hersey, Chief Product Officer; former executive at Attensity, Palo Alto, CA, SAP BusinessObjects, Palo Alto, CA, Inxight Software, Palo Alto, CA, Inso Corp, Boston, MA, Logos Corp, Mt. Arlington, NJ and IBM, Bethesda, MD. Advisor to Timeline Labs and Livefyre.
Manny Aparicio, Ph.D., Chief Memory Maker and Evangelist, former Chief Scientist at IBM Knowledge Management and Intelligent Agent Center, Raleigh, NC.
James Fleming, Chief Software Engineer, former software developer at IBM Knowledge Management and Intelligent Agent Center, Raleigh, NC.
Chad Smith, Chief Information Officer and Head of Development; former executive at Acxiom, Little Rock, AK and 3 Birds Marketing, Chapel Hill, NC.
Walt Gall, Ph.D., VP, Health Care; formerly with Metabolon leading strategic R&D and BD Technologies at the Research Triangle Park, NC.
Mark Herrick, SVP, Sales; formerly with Accenture's North American Retail practice, San Francisco, CA.
Associative memory base technology
Associative memory bases identify entities that are defined as people, places and things. The technology mimics human memory by recalling associations between those people, places and things, and specifically the context and frequency of association. As each entity in a set of data has its own memory about all the other entities it is associated with, the engine can learn the way humans do.[3] The technology has proved to be highly scalable and efficient in cases of extremely large datasets. Saffron exploits a proprietary loss less compression routine that is capable of creating extremely compact models. The Saffron implementation is able to operate on compressed datasets thereby enabling dramatic reduction in storage and CPU hardware, thus enabling the application of associative memory technology in a distributed environment.
Associative memory and similarity analytics
Saffron unifies and connect millions of data points from disparate sources, structured and unstructured, and stores their billions of connections in an associative memory. Users interact with the memory base on a user-friendly interface with both read and write functionality, allowing organizations to index and integrate their data without writing code. The underlying four-dimensional entity store includes advanced analytic functions based on algorithmic information theories such as the Kolmogorov complexity. These analytic functions incorporate classification, predictive analytics and pattern recognition as well as trending and converging patterns in the data. Patterns are presented on a seamless visual interface to the user, enabling organizations to easily identify actionable insights and adapt their strategy to minimize cost and maximize efficiency.
Platform components
- An associative knowledge store with Web Service
- Point-and-click data integration and ETL
- Discovery, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive analytics
- Real-time visual analytics
National security & Iraq
During the Iraqi insurgency Saffron was used by coalition forces in Iraq to help identify entities that were defined as people, places and things involved in insurgent networks. The tool mimicked human memory by recalling associations between those people, places and things. Unlike other tools Saffron focused on context and frequency of association. Each word representing an entity in a set of data had its own memory about all the other words it had been used in association with. In this way the tool could learn the way humans did.[3]
Industry
Saffron's Natural Intelligence platform is utilized by Global 1000 companies across industries including manufacturing, energy, defense and healthcare, to help decision-makers manage risks, identify opportunities and anticipate future outcomes, thus reducing cost and increasing productivity.
A Global 100 manufacturing company uses Saffron Technology in a number of operational areas to leverage past engineering decisions and business experiences, such as component and part order optimization, failure root-cause analysis, and predictive maintenance.[9]
Footnotes
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