As a researcher in the ML field, this is why im happy Just chiming in here to answer AlwaysL8's question.
3.5. The release of academic research. Thoughts on how this might raise the profile of ADK?
(This is turned out to be a long post so my apologies)
Actually, academic research involving neural networks to analyze retinal images in not new. Papers go back to the very late 90's but only really developing in the early 2000's. Although these past papers had very little training data to go on.
And many different teams have been tackling this task on competitive programming /algorithm platforms such as kaggle.com
Often, in CNN papers the topic will be quite boring, like a new network architecture that performed 0.5% better than the leading one. (this is one reason I hate reading CNN papers that only discuss architecture and have no original feature engineering)
On another note that I have talked about here previously... All these field tests (pilot programs) have a 'hidden' intrinsic value (other than their monetary worth) that most of the investors underestimate. All the collected data (iff annotated, which is a lot of work) can be used to further train the network (AI software), and should be considered a monetary company asset.
When you have this sort of data, changing architecture is a non-issue for Diagnos Inc. So if, let say, google published a new CNN architecture they claimed worked better... using that architecture is fair game (it almost impossible to patent), and the switch would not be too difficult.
But here are the important things to consider, and also why I, and a researcher in machine learning is invested in this company and am not worried about googles or anyone elses publications:
The difference between 97% and 98% error rate is completely trivial to anyone other than academic researchers and benchmark competition. (and anyway, ADK and Google both have the same success rate of ~98%)
ADK, has great tech and the fact that Google with all its resources, money, and manpower, could only match the results is in no doubt positive news. It only proves the underlying technology, which benefits ADK.
The real value in this company is its business side, the technology is already proven. Given the success of deep learning algorithms with other machine vision tasks, the results of these new trials aren’t surprising.
I want to add this quote from a different article by Yaser Sheikh, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon who is working on other forms of AI for healthcare, says that actually moving this kind of thing into the developing world can be difficult.
“It is the kind of thing that sounds good, but actually making it work has proven to be far more difficult,” he says. “Getting technology to actually help in the developing world—there are many, many systematic barriers.” - Dr. Yaser Sheikh
ADK is already neck deep in the developing world implementing their tech, and have blown through these "many, many systematic barriers.”. They are MORE THAN "YEARS" ahead of anyone, big companies like google have not (and I believe WILL NOT) even try(ied) to compete.
[someone correct me if I am wrong... are there other companies are in this market?]
I wanted to mention a couple other things, but this is too long already and i have to get back to work.
So I will just end on this note...
- ADKs tech is proven, both in the lab and field.
- One of their big values is how they are penetrating all these new markets internationally. No other company can even compare.
And for me personally, the biggest selling point;
- They have shown the ability to pivot (e.g. mining to health care) on this extremely robust AI platform. Now that they are proving their capabilities in implementing machine learning solutions abroad it will be very easy for them (and they have proven their ability in the past) to add new revenue streams in the form of other machine-learning solutions (which there are many, and the number grows every day) in the markets where they already exist.
And this is why I can not put a number on this companies growth potential. Where we stand now, it is endless (given they continue to make the same good decisions they have been making so far)... and competition will have a VERY challenging time even entering the market against them.
This company is way undervalued, and im surprised its even a penny stock (although im not a finance guy, to be fair). Sorry this turned into a book...