Another new proud member of the Owlin team is Marcia Tavares of Portugal, who is now our new front-end engineer and UX designer. She did her Master’s degree in Design and Multimedia, finishing it with her thesis presentation in Bordeaux and explains how she ended up in Amsterdam.
Another new proud member of the Owlin team is Marcia Tavares of Portugal, who is now our new front-end engineer and UX designer. She did her Master’s degree in Design and Multimedia, finishing it with her thesis presentation in Bordeaux and explains how she ended up in Amsterdam.
I graduated in Computer Engineering and I hold a master’s degree in Design and Multimedia. I concluded my master’s degree in 2014 with the presentation of my thesis in Bordeaux. Last year, right after finishing my degree, I worked as a front-end engineer and UI/UX designer in a startup company back in my hometown situated in Portugal.
I was seeking for a job opportunity in Amsterdam through AIESEC Portugal and that is when I got to know Owlin. I decided to apply since I was really interested in the work they do and additionally because I always had a passion about data visualization (usage and representation of data). By combining my skills and at the same time improving and developing new skills, this job seemed the perfect opportunity.
Yes! The atmosphere is way better than what I expected at the time. The environment is really comfortable, you get to manage your time and projects the way it suits you best, and the most important (at least for me) - we work as a team and not as individuals. Oh, and I almost forgot - the lunch is really good! Typical Dutch with a lot of (constructive) discussions.
I strive to be the best in at what I do so I can definitely see myself growing as a professional. By then I want to have a career, opportunities to continuously develop my skills, take on interesting projects and work with people I can really learn from.
]]>Two of Owlin’s recent hires are from Syria. Recently the NRC published an article about Ahmed. Now it is time that we put them both in the spot light. Here are the Q&As of Ahmed Younes and Rabih Alqawareet.
Two of Owlin’s recent hires are from Syria. Recently the NRC published an article about Ahmed. Now it is time that we put them both in the spot light. Here are the Q&As of Ahmed Younes and Rabih Alqawareet.
(AY): Hello, my name is Ahmed Younes. I am from Damascus, Syria. I am 26 years old and I studied Law on the university of Damascus. I studied Japanese for a year and additionally I worked for an online gaming company in Damascus for a year and a half before I came to the Netherlands.
(RA): My name is Rabih Alqawareet and I am 26 years old. I am born and raised in the oldest city of the world, namely Damascus, Syria. After graduating high school, I wanted to travel and discover the world and I therefore applied to the University of Lattakia to study tourism. However, my passion for technology that I developed during school was stronger and I then came up with idea of combining the two and study abroad. I applied for a couple of scholarships across the world and got accepted to study in Russia. In Russia I studied in Tver, a nice and cozy city between Moscow and Saint Petersburg where I obtained my bachelor degree in computer science. After graduation, I could not go home since I had to serve in the military which I was quite scared of due to all current developments in Syria. Additionally, there was nothing left to come back to and thus I decided to go to the Netherlands.
(AY): Well, in general life is boring at the azc unless you do some voluntary work to fill your time. After my arrival in the Netherlands, I joined a coding school called “Hack Your Future” to learn some programming. That is how I mostly spend my time at the azc. After I finished the “Hack Your Future” course, they connected me to Owlin to do an internship.
(RA): I came to the Netherlands and ended up in the azc. Life in the azc was seeing war through the eyes of people who lived the war. In the azc I followed a project called “Hack Your Future” which is a highly intensive course of six months in web development aimed to help refugees make a new start. After I completed the program, a couple of companies were interested to offer me an internship. One of these companies was Owlin who got me very enthusiastic after the first interview.
(AY): I really like working at Owlin. As I said I’m new to programming the only knowledge I have Is from the 6 months’ internship I did at Hack Your Future, and because of that I ask a lot of questions and people here are nice enough to bear with my questions which might be stupid Sometime.
(RA): Owlin is a very innovative and challenging company driven by a team of passionate and talented professionals that are going to make a difference in the technology world and bring us a whole new meaning about news. What I like about working for Owlin is that everything we do at the company is “Owlined”. What I mean by this is that there are always new challenges which keep me motivated and from which I learn a lot. Additionally, I really like the atmosphere where I get my own space along with open-mind and supportive colleagues where my productivity is boosted to the max!
(AY): I would like to keep improving my programming skills. I hope that I will not be asking as much questions to my peers in 10 years as I do now.
(RA): For the coming 10 years I am planning to develop myself and gain a lot of experience followed with a master’s degree, probably in the field of ‘data science’. This is something that I recently considered after working for Owlin. Also, I would love to learn the Dutch and Italian language.
We have an exciting opportunity for law students! Owlin and AMS Advocaten N.V. offer a combined internship. Please check our careers section for further details.
]]>New York, December 8 – Venture capitalists are placing big bets on digital payments and the Internet of Things, but are still scoping out plays for ‘gamification’ and biometrics. Consumer Goods and Media & Entertainment sectors are ripe for startups and investment activity, dominating media attention in these areas, according to the KPMG Startup Trends Index.
The index is a real-time analysis of news sources involving startups, incubators, venture capitalists and related technologies. It was launched today as a joint effort of KPMG LLP in the U.S., KPMG in the Netherlands, and Owlin, a real-time news alert service.
To access the KPMG Startup Trends Index, visit http://startuptrendsindex.kpmg.com.
The index filters, analyzes and provides insights culled from more than 1.8 million news and social media sources. It reveals the new technology and business models startups are bringing to market, as well as key focus areas of major investors, what disruptive technologies are drawing their interest, and the volume of buzz by industry sector.
“We’re providing a real-time snapshot of what is trending with investments in startups,” says Colleen Drummond, managing director of KPMG’s Innovation Lab. “By pairing innovative technology with our deep expertise in trends analysis and the investment landscape, we can help clients identify new competitors and changing customer expectations to solve emerging business problems and gain an edge in the marketplace.”
“The KPMG Startup Trends Index is just one example of how the firm identifies and monitors market disruption to help clients with their strategies and the development of innovative service offerings in today’s dynamic environment,” says Mike Nolan, vice chair, Innovation & Enterprise Solutions at KPMG. He added, “Teaming with forward-thinking organizations like Owlin enables KPMG to enhance and accelerate innovation.”
Combining Owlin’s proprietary algorithms with KPMG’s market insights, the index continuously updates and tracks patterns from public news sources (press releases, annual reports, magazines, forums, newspapers, news wires, etc.) and social media for a period of 200 days. The Owlin algorithm weighs the content based on timeliness and relevance.
“The analysis is always provided in real-time because insights today can be old news tomorrow,” says Sjoerd Leemhuis, Owlin co-founder. “The index is another example of the many ways our algorithms and expertise can be channelled into specific products.”
The KPMG Startup Trends Index builds on the success of the KPMG Technology Trends Index, http://technologytrendsindex.kpmg.com, also jointly developed by Owlin and KPMG, and includes advanced features:
- Scrolling ticker with headlines of top trending news stories
- “Deals bar” that indicates “hot” industry sectors for startup news
- Trends as a result of venture capital activity, color coded to reflect “buzz” level
- List of companies that are actively investing and their areas of interest
“Owlin is one of several startups we’re working with to detect and decode signals in the market that may elevate over time into the next big thing,” says Sal Melilli, national audit industry leader of KPMG’s Private Markets group. “Tracking what leading and emerging startups have in the works and distilling trends provides market intelligence that isn’t currently available.”
This week Alina Di (28) came on board of the team as a project manager for Owlin.
She was born in Luchegorsk in far Eastern Russia (Look it up!), between China and Japan. 'Walking distance to China,' she says. She grew up in Vladivostok, 477 km to the south.
After high school, she went to Prague to study International Relations and European Studies. After her bachelor's, she specialized in International Business at the University of Economics there. In 2010, she decided to go for a double master by entering the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz, Germany as well. She received her MA degrees in 2011. She worked in Frankfurt, Darmstadt and Prague before coming to Amsterdam, at the end of 2014.
Alina loves to read - favourite novel: 'War and Peace' by Tolstoy - and boating. She and her partner bought a small boat in Amsterdam and she loves touring the canals, 'especially in the evenings.' She also likes to play chess but she doesn't want that mentioned because it sounds too dull.
She is fluent in English, Russian and Czech.
]]>Noro Venture Capital was one of the seed investors of Owlin but is not a shareholder of Owlin. Its bankruptcy, however unfortunate for those involved, has no bearing on Owlin or its business.
]]>In the first week of May ING added a new feature to its 'Sprinters' portal for private investors. The 'Nieuwstrends' page displays graphically which shares, currencies or other financial products get the most 'buzz' (media attention) in real time, and then ranks the five financial instruments with the most positive coverage and the top-5 negatively in the news.
Underneath, the analysis of news is presented graphically: the size of balloons reflects the amount of news coverage or buzz. A click on a balloon produces the list of news articles.
The combination of rankings and graphic representation makes it easy to see quickly which news is trending. One-click access to the underlying stories allows investors to read the news that is causing the market movements, and to decide whether to act on the news.
The Nieuwstrends tool was proposed to ING by Owlin, and developed by the Owlin team in cooperation with ING Sprinters. To have a look at the platform go here: https://www.ingsprinters.nl/club/nieuwstrends
]]>Owlin supplied API for the ABN AMRO Hackathon on June 6th and co-organized the event
Owlin partnered with ABN AMRO on June 6th and organized a Hackathon for teams consisting of suppliers and the bank's employees. Owlin supplied the latest version of its API for participants to experiment with. The challenge was to find new applications and uses for the vast stream of news stories delivered and streamed by Owlin's search algorithms. Teams were made up of IT specialists of ABN AMRO, IBM, Infosys and Owlin.
Owlin's data scientists have contended and won in a number of Hackathons around the world in the past few years, and still do. So the environment is familiar, but the role is new.
"In stead of just participating, we are a partner of this event next to IBM and Infosys. Feels like we have grown up," says co-founder Sjoerd Leemhuis with a smile.
Owlin used the occasion to test the 2.0 release of the API, currently in beta, which has numerous improvements. Thanks to a complete rewrite the API works faster, is easier to use, and is ready for a lot of features that in the roadmap up ahead.
Owlin programmers and data scientists were on hand to advise teams, but they also benefitted from feedback from participants to further improve the API.
A lot of the projects that were presented during the hackathon are expected to convert to a real solutions for banking clients in the near future.
]]>Owlin hires three programmers in a difficult job market.
Three computer science wizards joined Owlin the second quarter of 2015.
Francesco Puglierin (31) is from Asolo in the Veneto, in the north of Italy, 'Just north of Venice. Well, Treviso actually,' he explains. He studied Computer Science at the University of Padua and he first landed in The Netherlands through the Erasmus programme. After a brief interval working for Citi in Barcelona, he came back to study in Utrecht where he graduated with a Master's degree in Artificial Intelligence at the end of 2012. His first 'real' job was with a Kickstarter project that took him to Shenzhen, China. After working on a number of other projects as a freelancer, he spent the last six months refining his Data Science skills and entered the job market again. He chose Owlin over an offer from a company with 8.000 employees and 150 offices worldwide.
"I like small companies. It's more challenging, but there is so much stuff to learn! The environment is very dynamic, and you feel your contribution can really make the difference"
At Owlin, Francesco will work on improving Owlin's natural language processing capabilities.
Carmine Paolino (who will turn 28 this summer) works one day a week at Owlin while he finishes his Master’s thesis in Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam with specialization in Technical Artificial Intelligence.
The thesis is titled ‘Music Genre Recognition with Deep Neural Networks.’ Carmine’s aim is to develop an algorithm that recognizes genres of music from the audio signal and continually improves that ability through AI. He hopes to complete his Master’s in August and join Owlin full-time after that. At Owlin, he is currently responsible for improving the clustering algorithm.
He came to Amsterdam after completing his B.Sc at Bologna, a university recommended by friends from back home (Castrovillari, Calabria) for the quality of its computer science department. In high school in Castrovillari, he was a Gentoo Linux programmer as well as an ambitious chess player and an accomplished karate master. He now spends a lot of his spare time composing electronic music and playing as a DJ at various clubs in Amsterdam.
Carmine started using computers at the age of 3, and 'since then I fell in love with them,' he says.
Ralf Nieuwenhuijsen (33) will be 'full-stack' developer at Owlin, meaning he will develop front end, back end and everything in between on Owlin's products. Initially, he will focus on improving the API. How did he end up at Owlin?
'Well, I met Bas (van Ooyen) in the bar, actually,' he says with a grin. In the Cafe Belgie on the Oude Gracht in Utrecht, to be precise. Autumn 2014. They discovered their shared passion for programming and Bas invited him to work on a new product - the user interface for a new product for one of Owlin's clients in the financial sector.
Ralf grew up and went to high school in Alphen aan den Rijn and studied Computer Science at Utrecht University. He found that he was more interested in developing for himself than executing school assignments. He has been working on projects ever since and still spends part of his time working for clients other than Owlin.
Ralf's interests are philosophy, politics and science.
]]>Owlin moved from Utrecht to Amsterdam in the spring of 2015, to a 240m2 office that will accommodate the next few years of growth. Our new address: Stadhouderskade 85, 1073AT Amsterdam
Owlin managed to find the perfect location in the capital. A spacious, bright, sunny office on the top floor of an office building on the Stadhouderskade, right next to the Heineken Brewery and with terraces - believe it or not! - overlooking the Weteringplantsoen and Freddy's (Heineken) old office.
Currently, there are 12 workplaces, a meeting room, a large meeting area and server spaces - but the space could easily accommodate twice the number of work spaces.
A soft spring breeze blows through the opened windows, waiting for a housewarming to be held.
Our new address: Stadhouderskade 85, 1073AT Amsterdam
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