Marek Kowalkiewicz

Last updated
Marek Kowalkiewicz
MarekKowalkiewicz.jpg
Born (1978-07-21) 21 July 1978 (age 46)
Kołobrzeg, Poland
NationalityPolish, Australian
Education Poznań University of Economics and Business
Scientific career
Fields Artificial intelligence
Digital transformation
Machine learning
Natural language processing
Institutions Poznań University of Economics and Business
Queensland University of Technology
Website https://www.qut.edu.au/about/our-people/academic-profiles/marek.kowalkiewicz

Marek Kowalkiewicz (born 21 July 1978[ citation needed ]) is a Polish-Australian computer scientist. He is a Professor and Chair in Digital Economy at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) where he focuses on artificial intelligence (AI) and digital transformation strategies for government and industry. [1] He performs all of his research in 30-day "research innovation sprints", a concept he pioneered at QUT in 2015. [2] Kowalkiewicz's research sprints are designed to create and accelerate industry-focused research outcomes by combining the commercial philosophy of Google's five-day design sprint with the rigour of academic research. [3]

Contents

Kowalkiewicz joined QUT from Silicon Valley where he led global innovation teams for SAP. He was a Research Manager at SAP's Machine Learning Lab in Singapore, [4] Global Research Program Lead at SAP Research Australia, and a Research Fellow at Microsoft Research Asia.

His book, The Economy of Algorithms: Rise of the Digital Minions, was published on 5 March 2024. [5]

Education

Poznań University of Economics and Business

Kowalkiewicz received a Master of Business Information Systems from Poznań University of Economics and Business (PUEB) in Poland in 2002. [6] He completed his PhD in Information Systems at PUEB in 2006, graduating summa cum laude. Kowalkiewicz's research area was in extracting content from websites; his dissertation was titled "Information Extraction and Aggregation for Business Entities". [7]

Career and research

Poznań University of Economics and Business

From 2002 - 2006, while completing his PhD, Kowalkiewicz held the position of Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Systems at Poznań University of Economics and Business. [8]

Microsoft Research Asia

Before receiving his PhD in 2006, Kowalkiewicz relocated to Beijing to become a Research Fellow at Microsoft Research Asia where he built a location detection system for Windows Live Spaces, a functionality that was later introduced in blog searches. [9]

SAP Research Australia

In 2007, he joined SAP Research Australia as Senior Researcher and Development Expert leading teams of developers and researchers in various projects including the 2010 launch of the first SAP app in the AppStore, AUS Traffic, [10] which led to SAP's focus on mobile apps and Apple partnership. He also led the IdeaWall project (previously known as InnoBoard), [11] a remote collaboration app that helped distributed teams work with physical and virtual post-it notes, a concept still used in some internal SAP applications.

While at SAP Research, Kowalkiewicz was appointed Global Research Program Manager, User Experience, where he established a global user experience research team and program.

He also led a global series of SAP InnoJam [12] hackathons which promoted the use of SAP technologies by startups, and won SAP TechEd DemoJams in Las Vegas [11] and Bangalore [13] with demonstrations of augmented reality (AR) in enterprise systems.

SAP Singapore

In April 2012, Kowalkiewicz moved to Singapore to help establish SAP Research's Asia-Pacific Japan (APJ) headquarters. As Research Manager and Head of Developer Outreach for APJ, he created SAP's first Machine Learning research lab. [4]

SAP Americas

In 2014, he was appointed Senior Director, Products and Innovation, at SAP Americas in Palo Alto, California. Kowalkiewicz was global content and strategy lead for SAP's largest internal conference series, d-kom, [14] where he designed and launched its annual, global developer kick-off event for more than 25,000 attendees. He also built a network of makerspaces for SAP developers, introducing AR/VR, 3D printing, and robotics.

Kowalkiewicz was a SAP Mentor in their SAP Influencer Program from 2013 - 2018. [15] According to SAP's website, SAP Mentors are "Top influencers in the SAP ecosystem, representing customers, partners, and consultants." [16]

QUT and Chair in Digital Economy

In 2015, Kowalkiewicz was appointed Professor and PwC Chair in Digital Economy [17] [1] at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). This joint venture between QUT, [18] PwC, [19] Brisbane Marketing [20] and the Queensland Government was a five-year research initiative that enabled collaboration between industry, academia and government and was tasked with "designing digital transformation strategies for complex economic and social challenges". [21]

In 2016, Kowalkiewicz was a member of the Opportunities for Personalised Transport Review Taskforce guiding the Queensland Government on developing new ride-sharing regulation. [22] The newDemocracy Foundation [23] ranked the regulation, dubbed "Legalising Uber,"  as one of the leading evidence-based policy initiatives of the year following reports by Per Capita and the Institute of Public Affairs. [24] [25]

From 2016 - 2019, Kowalkiewicz was Research Theme Lead: Embracing the Digital Age. [26]

In 2020, Kowalkiewicz co-founded his Queensland AI Hub [27] in collaboration with Queensland's government, universities and industry leaders. [28] The AI Hub was established during the COVID-19 crisis to improve Queensland's AI capability. [29]

In 2020, Kowalkiewicz established a QUT Centre for the Digital Economy, as its founding director. [21] In 2022, the Centre was merged with the very similar QUT's Centre for Future Enterprise, [30] and Kowalkiewicz carries out its "Algorithmic Enterprise" research. [31]

Boards, fellowships, memberships

Keynotes

Kowalkiewicz has delivered more than 100 keynotes to academia and industry. [34] He primarily speaks on the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence and the challenges and opportunities it presents to organisations. Keynote topics include digital economy, digital transformation, economy of algorithms, innovation sprints, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, technology management, and business information systems.

Recognition

Publications

Books

The Economy of Algorithms: Rise of the Digital Minions was published in March 2024. [35]

Articles

Kowalkiewicz is the author or co-author of more than 140 publications. [36]

Online news sites

Kowalkiewicz is a regular contributor to The Conversation not-for-profit media outlet [37] and the online publishing platform Medium. [38] He also publishes weekly on Substack. [39]

Patents

  1. Workflow task re-evaluation, United States US 8429668 B2, Issued June 11, 2009
  2. Workflow Modeling With Flexible Blocks, United States US 20090281777 A1, Issued November 12, 2009
  3. Composing and executing service processes, United States US 20100088701 A1, Issued April 8, 2010
  4. Method and system to effectuate recovery for dynamic workflows, United States US 20110246991 A1, Issued October 6, 2011
  5. Systems and Methods for Augmenting Physical Media from Multiple Locations, United States US 20120324372 A1, Issued December 20, 2012
  6. Creating parallel control flows in business process models, United States US 8365136 B2, Issued January 29, 2013
  7. Systems and methods for data aware workflow change management, United States US 8413150 B2, Issued April 2, 2013
  8. Timer patterns for process models, United States US 8683436 B2, Issued March 25, 2014
  9. Work flow model processing with weak dependencies that allows runtime insertion of additional tasks, United States US 8719826 B2, Issued May 6, 2014
  10. Multi-media collaborator, United States US 20140152665 A1, Issued June 5, 2014
  11. Creating parallel control flows in business process models, Europe EP 2101292 A1, Issued September 16, 2009
  12. Method, system and computer program product for composing and executing service processes, Europe EP 2175403 A1, Issued April 14, 2010
  13. Method and system to effectuate recovery for dynamic workflows, Europe EP 2372620 A1, Issued October 5, 2011

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Workflow</span> Pattern of activity often with a result

Workflow is a generic term for orchestrated and repeatable patterns of activity, enabled by the systematic organization of resources into processes that transform materials, provide services, or process information. It can be depicted as a sequence of operations, the work of a person or group, the work of an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Queensland</span> Public research university in Brisbane, Australia

The University of Queensland is a public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone universities, an informal designation of the oldest university in each state. UQ is also a founding member of edX, Australia's leading Group of Eight and the international research-intensive Association of Pacific Rim Universities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queensland University of Technology</span> Public research university in Brisbane, Australia

The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public research university located in the coastal city of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. It has two major campuses, a modern city campus in Gardens Point and a historical campus in Kelvin Grove. The university offers courses in fields including architecture, engineering, information technology, healthcare, teaching, law, arts and design, science and mathematics.

Jason Potts is a New Zealand-born academic economist. His work focuses on the theoretical development of evolutionary economics using complex systems theory. His current research is on the role of creative industries in innovation-driven economic growth and development. He is also a leading researcher on the economics of blockchains and is currently the Director of the Blockchain Innovation Hub, housed at RMIT University. Building on the work of Elinor Ostrom, Potts has developed the concept of the innovation commons. Potts received his B.Com from the University of Otago, NZ, (1993), and his PhD (Economics), from Lincoln University, New Zealand (1999). His highest cited work is his book, The New Evolutionary Microeconomics, at over 700 times, according to Google Scholar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Fitzgerald (academic)</span> Australian legal academic and barrister

Brian Fitzgerald is an Australian legal academic and barrister. He is an intellectual property and information technology/internet lawyer who has pioneered the teaching of internet/cyber law in Australia. Fitzgerald was a specialist research professor at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) until February 2012, when he became the inaugural executive dean of law at the Australian Catholic University's Faculty of Law and Business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UQ Law School</span> Law school of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia

The UQ Law School is the law school of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Founded in 1936, UQ law school is the sixth oldest law school in Australia and the oldest operating in Queensland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Burgess</span> Australian academic

Jean Burgess is a Distinguished Professor of Digital Media at the QUT Digital Media Research Centre, and in the QUT School of Communication. She is currently Associate Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. She was the Deputy Director of the former ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) at the Queensland University of Technology. From 2010-2013 Jean was an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow (APD), working with Axel Bruns on the ARC Discovery Project 'New Media and Public Communication'. She researches and publishes on issues of cultural participation in new media contexts, with a particular focus on user-created content, online social networks, and co-creative media including digital storytelling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yossi Matias</span> Israeli computer scientist

Yossi Matias is an Israeli-American computer scientist, entrepreneur and Google executive. Matias is Vice President, Engineering & Research at Google, and the founding managing director of Google's Center in Israel. He is on the leadership team of Google's Research, the global exec lead overseeing Google’s Health AI, Crisis Response and Climate AI efforts, and leads efforts in Conversational AI. For over a decade he was on the leadership team of Google’s Search, building and leading efforts including Google Trends, Google Autocomplete, Search Console, and Search experiences in weather, sports, dictionaries and more. In 2024 Matias move to Silicon Valley to head Google Research, the company’s global research activity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer L. Martin</span> Australian molecular biologist

Professor Jennifer Louise "Jenny" Martin is an Australian scientist and academic. She was the Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Wollongong, in New South Wales from 2019-2022. She is a former director of the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery at Griffith University. and a former Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland. Martin is Professor Emerita at the University of Queensland and adjunct professor at Griffith University. Her research expertise encompasses structural biology, protein crystallography, protein interactions and their applications in drug design and discovery.

Health Translation Queensland is the first Advanced Health Research Translation Centre in Queensland, Australia.

SAP Business Technology Platform is a platform as a service developed by SAP SE that offers a suite of services including database and data management, AI, analytics, application development, automation and integration all running on one unified platform.

David Abramson is an Australian computer scientist. He has been Director of the Research Computing Centre at the University of Queensland, Australia, since 2012. He has been involved in computer architecture and high performance computing research since 1979.

Dr. Vivian Chan is a British-Australian serial entrepreneur and businesswoman. She is the co-founder and former CEO of Sparrow, a London-based startup making science accessible by blending AI and expert human curation to democratise science. Currently, she is the founder of Deeptech Insider, a platform providing exclusive insights, strategies, and access in the Deeptech sector. Dr Chan also sits on the board for Create London, a charity that helps artists connect more closely with communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guillermo Capati</span> Adjunct Professor

Guillermo "Bill" Capati, is an adjunct professor and professional engineer in the field of civil and environmental engineering. Currently, Capati is an adjunct professor at the University of Queensland since December 2008.

QFAB Bioinformatics is a Queensland-based organisation concerned with the provision of resources in bioinformatics, biostatistics and specialised computing platforms. QFAB operates Australia-wide and is a key contributor to the EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource.

Arun Sharma is an Indian Australian computer science professor. He is a distinguished emeritus professor at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) where he was the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Commercialisation from 2004 to 2019. He is the Council Chair of the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. Within the multinational Adani Group, he is also an Advisor to the Chairman and Group Head for Sustainability and Climate Change. He was a cofounder of Australia's National ICT Research Centre of Excellence (NICTA), and Director of the Translational Research Institute (Australia). In the course of his institutional duties, Sharma played a significant role in the development of Australian technology research capability, the promotion of translational research in agriculture and biosciences within Queensland, and the fostering of international technological research cooperation between Australia and India. Sharma's professional achievements have been recognized by awards by the Premier of Queensland, the Office of the Chief Scientist (Australia), the India Australia Business & Community Awards (IABCA), the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, and the Royal Order of Australia. He was born in the town of Banmankhi in the Indian state of Bihar.

Patsy Yates is an Australian registered nurse, university professor, and institutional leader who works at the Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane), where she is a Distinguished Professor and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health, Research Director of the Centre for Palliative Care Research and Education, and Co-Director of the Centre for Healthcare Transformation. She is a specialist in the field of palliative, cancer and aged care.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cara Wrigley</span> Australian design researcher and author

Cara Wrigley is an Australian industrial designer, design researcher and author. She is professor of design innovation at The University of Queensland. Her research interests include design thinking, design-led innovation, design education, and emotional design.

Cori Anne Stewart is an Australian innovator who is CEO of Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Hub, an Artificial Intelligence and robotics company and a 2023–2024 Superstar of STEM, an initiative within Science and Technology Australia.

References

  1. 1 2 Technology (QUT), Queensland University of. "Professor Marek Kowalkiewicz". QUT.
  2. Bongiovanni, Ivano; Townson, Peter; Kowalkiewicz, Marek (March 10, 2023). "Bridging the academia-industry gap through design thinking: Research innovation sprints". Research Handbook on Design Thinking. Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 102–126. ISBN   9781802203134 via www.elgaronline.com.
  3. Bongiovanni, Ivano; Kowalkiewicz, Marek; Townson, Peter (May 21, 2023). "We solve problems in 30 days through 'research sprints': other academics can do this too". The Conversation.
  4. 1 2 "Machine Learning Lab". sap.github.io.
  5. The Economy of Algorithms by Marek Kowalkiewicz. August 18, 2023 via www.blackincbooks.com.au.
  6. "Professor Marek Kowalkiewicz".
  7. Online, Stanford (February 22, 2023). "Stanford Online Certificate". BCdiploma.
  8. "Department of Information Systems". Department of Information Systems. December 1, 2023.
  9. "Marek Kowalkiewicz". SAPinsider. Retrieved 2024-02-16.
  10. "Surf Through Traffic with SAP's iPhone App | SAP Blogs". blogs.sap.com. 28 June 2010.
  11. 1 2 3 Purnell, Freya (September 16, 2011). "Australian innovation wins the 2011 TechEd Demo Jam". InsideSAP.
  12. "SAP InnoJam In A Nutshell | SAP Blogs". blogs.sap.com. 23 May 2011.
  13. 1 2 Queensland, The University of; Lucia, Australia Brisbane St; Gatton, QLD 4072 +61 7 3365 1111 Other Campuses: UQ; Maps, UQ Herston; Queensland, Directions © 2023 The University of. "UQ students win first prize at international software conference". UQ News.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. "What happens at DKOM stays at DKOM | SAP Blogs". blogs.sap.com. 25 March 2013.
  15. "SAP Community Influencers". community.sap.com.
  16. "SAP Mentors". community.sap.com. 9 January 2024.
  17. "Home". QUT Chair in Digital Economy.
  18. Technology (QUT), Queensland University of. "Home". QUT.
  19. "PwC Australia: audit, assurance, consulting and tax services". PwC.
  20. "Home - Choose Brisbane". choose.brisbane.qld.au.
  21. 1 2 Economy, Chair in Digital. "About us".
  22. https://cabinet.qld.gov.au/documents/2016/Aug/PersTrans/Attachments/WhitePaper.PDF
  23. "newDemocracy Foundation". newDemocracy Foundation.
  24. https://newdemocracy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/EBP-Per-Capita-Final-Report.pdf
  25. https://newdemocracy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/EBP-IPA-Final-Report.pdf
  26. https://cms.qut.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/716663/QUT-Institute-for-Future-Environments-2017-Annual-Report.pdf
  27. 1 2 "Welcome to the Queensland AI Hub - Artificial Intelligence | ML". Queensland AI Hub.
  28. Technology (QUT), Queensland University of. "QUT partners in new Queensland AI Hub". QUT.
  29. "Igniting Innovation: How Queensland's AI Hub Fuels Growth and Opportunity". eecs.uq.edu.au. September 29, 2023.
  30. Enterprise, Centre for Future. "About".
  31. Enterprise, Centre for Future. "The Algorithmic Enterprise".
  32. "On Deck: Explore starting a company". www.beondeck.com.
  33. https://www.hpw.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/6132/05ourstructure.pdf
  34. "Thinkers360".
  35. Hinchliffe, Joe (2024-03-09). "'I welcome our digital minions': the Silicon Valley insider warning about algorithms – while embracing them". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2024-05-30.
  36. "Marek Kowalkiewicz". scholar.google.com.au.
  37. "Marek Kowalkiewicz". The Conversation. September 22, 2015.
  38. "Marek Kowalkiewicz". Medium.
  39. Kowalkiewicz, Marek (December 6, 2023). "The Economy of Algorithms | Marek Kowalkiewicz | Substack". marekkowal.substack.com.