IDATHA

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP at a software platform that provides financing to independent car dealers in the US; we provide sophisticated tools to help those businesses grow. I’m responsible for providing strategic leadership for our technology to broaden and deepen our culture of continuous improvement to help us develop innovative products. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with IDATHA?

We brought them on to assist us with our core application and microservices we use machine learning (ML) for and the data engineering behind it. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

IDATHA is fully integrated into our organization — they provide engineers for our in-house teams responsible for building our technology. They’re focused on increasing efficiency to drive the scalability of our product offerings. IDATHA’s team is working on ML, which is the core of our products. 

Their team offers us everything from software architecture to engineering design. They also offer systems reliability engineering consulting, which we don’t need at this time, but we’ll utilize their expertise if we ever do. 

What is the team composition?

Several teammates have cycled in and out of the project, but at the moment, we’re working with three teammates, including the technical lead, an ML specialist, and a junior developer. 

How did you come to work with IDATHA?

IDATHA came highly recommended by our long-term partner — we were impressed with their expertise, professionalism, and ability to listen and act quickly. 

What is the status of this engagement?

This partnership began in February 2022, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

They’ve helped us reimagine and re-engineer our products while building entirely new ones. Their team provides us with a wide range of solutions that narrow in on the most straightforward way to deliver business value. IDATHA delivers value to our customers, which is the ultimate success metric. 

How did IDATHA perform from a project management standpoint?

I meet weekly with IDATHA’s leadership and teammates, who are fully integrated with our in-house team. Communication isn’t a challenge because they’re well-integrated with us.  IDATHA always delivers high-quality code on time, which is often difficult to achieve in our industry. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

First and foremost, the quality of IDATHA’s work is impressive — they understand the importance of delivering quality designed into the project, not added later. Their highly-talented teammates take full responsibility for their work and are very flexible. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We have some concerns about their language capabilities — unfortunately, a lot of their talent isn’t as fluent in English as we’d desire from a team. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d highly recommend IDATHA; they’ve impressed everyone at our company. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Critical Mass is a digital experience design agency with a relentless focus on the customer. I am VP Product Management and am responsible for building and managing teams that create new products and services and deliver them into market.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire IDATHA, and what were your goals?

We worked together with IDATHA to build an artificial intelligence technical proof of concept (POC) that was able to:

1. detect walls, ceilings, and floors within images
2. allowed a user to digitally recolor entire segments.

The goal of the project was to demonstrate the capabilities of using Machine Learning to identify and differentiate between different room features and surfaces and build a POC that could improve over a short amount time it’s efficacy in doing so.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

IDATHA came recommended by a former client of theirs which happened to be a close contact with our VP of Technology, Ricky Bacon. They were very transparent in their estimate, open to our input from the beginning and showed a lot of expertise in our initial conversations.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The scope was to create a functioning proof of concept for an application that allows users to upload a picture of their interior and recolor certain walls and ceilings with a selection of paint colors.

The proof of concept included an artificial intelligence that would detect wall segments, ceilings, floors, and background and furthermore allowed for repainting the selected segments considering lighting and shadow variations within the scene. The project consisted of four steps.

First, the team investigated a paper called Magic-wall: Visualizing Room Decoration. Secondly, they created a baseline machine learning replicating said paper but excluding several aspects that were not relevant.

In a third step IDATHA experimented with different neural network architectures to get the best possible machine learning model. In the last phase, the team made a functioning technical demonstration that we were able to show the resulting recolored output to the client.

Everything was implemented using Python and libraries such as Tensorflow and Keras.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Two people, a machine learning engineer, and a project manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The researchers in the Magic Wall paper reached a mIoU (mean intersection over union) of 65.8 and the team of IDATHA were able to come up with a model in less than two months that obtained a mIoU of 83.8 making it a very successful proof of concept.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

There were regular check-ins between the team, all the stages were well-documented and presented, and daily communication between teams was excellent.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their time management, attention to detail, flexibility in managing scope and overall quality of work.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing notable. Partnering with IDATHA was an overall excellent experience.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

DealMaker is a platform that aims to make capital raising easier for everyone. I'm CTO here, and I'm responsible for Software Development, amongst other areas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire IDATHA, and what were your goals?

We hired IDATHA to build a classification funding model using machine learning. We lacked that expertise internally and reached out to IDATHA for support and help develop the internal muscle.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Our relationship started with a small POC where IDATHA demonstrated professionalism and strong expertise in what they do. We then hired them to conduct implementation. They were always transparent in their estimate, well-skilled in work and very knowledgeable in machine learning and data science.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Investors use DealMaker to execute, fund and complete their private investment transactions. The project with IDATHA was focused on building a model to predict where investors will proceed with the investment. Their team worked closely with our internal team to determine the best path forward on the model development. And they implemented a microservice that contained the model.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Two people, a Machine Learning engineer and a Data Science Engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We produced the POC first after which we conducted implementation and further down the road improved the ML model. The overall engagement lasted several months during which we achieved our goals. IDATHA provided detailed documentation on the accuracy of the model and other related KPIs. During stages 2 and 3 of the project, we worked on achieving higher accuracy.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

There were regular check-ins between the team, all the stages were well-documented and presented, and daily communication between teams was excellent.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They delivered the highest quality of work and insight. They also worked together with our internal Engineers and ML interns and coached and help them along the way, which was very helpful to strengthen that muscle internally for us.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No that I can think of. The project was a great example of building trust together, tackling problems jointly and we hope to work with them again in the future if the need arises.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the IT Manager of an industrial-forestry company dedicated to the production of eucalyptus cellulose pulp in Uruguay.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire IDATHA?

In Montes del Plata we start a digitalization journey supported in new technologies, like machine learning, advanced analytics, among others. We saw IDATHA as a partner in this journey.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We had previously worked with IDATHA and invited them to help us to review potential opportunities of process efficiency through these new technologies, due to their professionalism, experience and knowledge of their team. We found that Ideal Weight was the perfect project to start and get a quick win.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

In Montes del Plata, approximately 115 thousand trips of wood are unloaded yearly. Each truck has a maximum weight which is standardized by regulations and a maximum volume standardized by the design of the truck. The challenge was to increase the volume of the load of each trip. We worked with IDATHA to construct a model based on computer vision and neural networks to help us to identify trucks that wasn’t loaded with the ideal volume/weight combination. This allowed us to reduce these cases by almost 90%

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

2 Senior Computer Vision Engineers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We made a proof of concept very quickly (1 month) with very good result. In the following 4 months we expanded the solution to the different Woodyards, and this allow us to reduce the trips with a not optimized relation weight/volume in almost 90 percent.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They worked with us as business partners and as a single integrated team.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The flexibility, the ability to understand our business and the synergy with the team.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

This Project was very successful, a very good example the teamwork and partnership.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Kinetix is a technology company born in Uruguay, created by the initiative of professionals with more than 20 years of experience, with the purpose of serving the Telco business. Our value proposition is based on the combination of specific knowledge and experience in communications technologies, large-scale project management, long-term relationships with world-class vendors and the integration of SW development capabilities, managed services and analytics. I am a co-founder and COO at Kinetix. www.kinetix.com.uy

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire IDATHA?

Provide data engineering and business translator services as part of our team, in the data lake of the most important telecommunications operator in Uruguay.

What were your goals for this project?

We had to join the operator's data treatment, integration and analysis team and provide capabilities and knowledge in the latest tools and methodologies applied in these disciplines.

SOLUTION

How did you select IDATHA?

We had previously worked with IDATHA for other projects where we needed to complement our development capabilities with knowledge of Artificial Intelligence. Professionalism, customer orientation, flexibility, deep knowledge and great experience in what they do, make them the best partner for us.

Describe the project in detail.

Data Lake is the place where all the data generated by the multiple systems of the Operator is dumped. We have to process all this information, crossing it and generating enrichment, for example to give user profiling, mobility data anonymously, and so on. In this way, different use and business cases are generated both for the operator and for third parties. The IDATHA team was integrated as if it were ours, taking all the challenges proposed by the end customer and providing knowledge and experience in data engineering. In this way, they complemented our specialized team in the telecommunications software development area.

What was the team composition?

The team is made up of a full stack developer specialized in data processing and a business analyst working in the client's offices since a year and a half. On the other hand, there is the support and consulting of specialists giving services from the IDATHA offices. In those cases they participate for certain projects that require increasing the team or knowledge in other specific areas such as AI.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

One of the most important achievements of our participation in this project and particularly the results of IDATHA's work was and continues to be in supporting the pandemic crisis. Many tools and reports have been generated on border transit, mobility of people, detection of agglomerations, detection and communication with citizens in vulnerable situations, support for government social plans, support in the vaccination system. For this work, our client, the operator, has obtained the recognition of high government authorities for the valuable information that we have been able to generate and display in real-time, helping to take quick actions during the pandemic.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We work as a single and fully integrated team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Dedication, transparency, solvency in knowledge and willingness to face any challenge presented.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They are a world-class company that is yet to be discovered in many markets.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the VP of Engineering of KUNGFU.AI

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a management consulting firm focused exclusively on artificial intelligence, our primary offerings being strategy, operations, and engineering.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire IDATHA to accomplish?

• To work with our team to build a media harmonization model

SOLUTION

How did you find IDATHA?

Referral

Why did you select IDATHA over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from IDATHA were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The task was to build a model that performs media harmonization and quantifies performance against the pre-existing manual solution. Key deliverables were the codebase and a report demonstrating performance (as well as areas for improvement).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Classification accuracy for the media tags assigned.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They were always on time with the right deliverable, with plenty of communication along the way.

What was your primary form of communication with IDATHA?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

IDATHA set a high bar for both talent and communication. The executive relationships are great, their team is top notch, and they are a very proactive partner to work with. I couldn't recommend them more!

Are there any areas for improvement or something IDATHA could have done differently?

I truly can't think of anything, this was a down-the-middle success.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the Chief Commercial Officer at a digital transformation firm focusing in innovation operating in Saudi Arabia

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire IDATHA?

We had a complex large scale project across a semi Government authority which depended on a proper business process interpretation adapted with innovation through the use of AI, with large dependencies in many stakeholders and entities, therefore quite complex

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

After enrolling them as partner, we decided on them due to their sense of responsibility, commitment and innovation factor with a world-class approach

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

It was quite complex due to the data privacy and restrictions so the contractual terms were the first step, upon understanding the business process the technical development of the same was smooth

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

3 business resources, one of which has a deep technical expertise specialized in the field and 3 technical resources

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

An innovation project

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Everything was smooth, communication was fluid and they are a pleasure to work with!

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The team was always supportive as if they were an extension of ours.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Pretty much satisfied, highly recommend them!