We are proud to announce that Dr Shixuan Wang (Department of Economics), part of an industry-academia collaboration team from BT (Dr Carla Di Cairano-Gilfedder), Cardiff University (Prof Aris Syntetos) and University of Reading, have been shortlisted as a Finalist in this year’s National AI Awards.

The inaugural event is set to take place on September 12th 2024, at Adastral Park, Ipswich, as a highlight of BT’s Secure Tomorrow Festival. With the UK government’s support, the National AI Awards is an annual event designed to recognise excellence and innovation in the field of artificial intelligence in the UK. This year’s awards will honour outstanding achievements across various sectors, including healthcare, financial services, gaming, and education, showcasing how AI is transforming industries and improving lives.

The awards ceremony will feature categories spanning from AI Citizen of the Year, AI Business of the Year, all the way through to The UK’s Prime Minister’s Award for AI Safety.

The work of the industry-academia collaboration team has been recognised as a finalist in the category of The AI Business of the Year. They have developed a successful business practice by leveraging AI for BT Fleet Solutions. Their AI solution is novel from three perspectives. Firstly, practitioners are able to visualize the tree structure of reliability in a transparent manner which can straightforwardly support case-based decision making. Secondly, the proposed maintenance policy can be easily implemented in practice with benefits arising from cost reduction of maintenance activities. Thirdly, their novel forecasting method for repair time, coupled with optimal operational decisions under asymmetric loss functions, can enhance the efficiency of garage daily maintenance job scheduling. This is an outstanding achievement, given the number of nominations we received this year.

“We are at a tipping point for an AI revolution. The National AI Awards champions everyone who is helping to seize the AI opportunity safely and successfully,” said Harmeen Mehta, Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, BT Group. “At BT Group, our ambition is to be the most trusted connector of people, devices, and machines. We are clear on the role we want to play in harnessing AI for a brighter future for everyone.”

Congratulations to all the other Finalists across the selection of categories for this year’s awards. We look forward to celebrating with you at Adastral Park on the 12th of September to celebrate our achievements!

The full list of finalists is available be here: https://thenationalaiawards.com/