157: Demian Bellumio (NEORIS)

Demian Bellumio on Innovation City

“There’s a lot of responsibility around algorithms and we’re just scratching the surface because we are learning.” – Demian Bellumio

Welcome to Season 3 of Innovation City, a podcast featuring innovators, creators, and disruptors to discover how business is changing in the modern world.

Created and produced by SLAM! Agency in cooperation with Venture Cafe St. Louis and Venture Cafe Miami, Innovation City gives you an inside look at how rapidly business and culture are changing thanks to increasing diversity and inclusion, heightened creativity, and a stronger and better-connected business community. Venture Cafe is the largest combined gathering of entrepreneurs and innovators anywhere in the world. Events are held every Thursday in St. Louis, Miami, and other leading innovation cities around the globe.

Today’s guest is Demian Bellumio, Vice President of Augmented Intelligence at NEORIS, which is creating disruptive solutions to enable the world’s leading enterprises in transforming their data into a strategic, actionable and valuable asset. Demian is a serial entrepreneur, with over 15 years of experience in creating and growing tech companies. In this episode, Demian sits down with the team to discuss his evolution from music to algorithms, the differences between an entrepreneur and an intrapreneur, avoiding algorithmic bias, and much more!

They discuss:

• Being a serial entrepreneur
• Focusing on things that move him for the last 10-15 years
  • AI/machine learning
  • Semantic computing
• Demian’s entrepreneurial journey
  • Started his first company right out of high school, selling marble flooring
  • Intern at Barclay Capital, when he convinced his boss to start a bank with him
  • Involved in the founding of a number of companies in the music + technology space
  • These experiences evolved into algorithms and AI
• From music to algorithms
  • Had his own music studio
  • One of the first to sign on-demand streaming licenses in 17 countries in 2007, before even Spotify
  • The huge music catalogs led to using algorithms to enhance user experience
  • Acoustic and lyric analysis
• Entrepreneur vs. intrapreneur
  • Building ideas and companies from within
  • Especially excited about the possibilities for one, called HealthCheck
• Technology that interfaces with people
  • Where does tech begin and end?
  • Sensitivity, treat people like people, not sources of data
• Avoiding algorithmic bias
  • Using them in a way that doesn’t perpetuate stereotypes and systemic biases
  • Properly using algorithms and inputting the right data for complete picture
• The future of augmented intelligence
  • Things will be easier to build
  • Algorithms will be more automated
• Contact Demian @Bellumio on Twitter and Instagram, neoris.com

Lightning Round:

1. How are you making a difference in this world?
   • By being the best father I can be.
2. What would you do if you were not afraid?
   • Build another company.
3. What was your childhood dream?
   • To be an entrepreneur.
4. What did you learn from your biggest regret?
   • That I’m definitely not perfect.