About Us

Professor Ackerman is a leading researcher in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, with dozens of peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Ackerman earned her PhD from the University of Waterloo, held postdoctoral fellowships at Caltech and UC San Diego and is currently on the faculty of the Computer Engineering Department at Santa Clara University. She won numerous research awards, and has been on the program committee of all leading AI conferences and journals. Maya is also an opera singer and producer.
www.maya-ackerman.com

David Loker, M.Math., is an award-winning researcher in machine learning with more than 12 years of industry experience. From supply chain optimization at Amazon, to personalization and recommendation systems at Netflix, David has an in-depth, practical understanding of statistical modeling and machine learning techniques. His extensive industry experience includes the formation and management of a team of over a dozen engineers and data scientists. David is also a singer and tuba player.

Christopher Cassion, MSc, is the winner of the prestigious Marshall D. Williamson Fellowship, given to a single graduate in the Computer Science department at Georgia Tech. Chris’ research experience ranges from Computational Creativity to AI agent-based simulation. He has worked at some of the world’s top companies and laboratories, from Machine Learning at Google to IBM’s Austin Research lab. Chris is also proud to have played 1st Trumpet in the Florida State University Marching Band.

Dr. Buckwalter is a renowned scientist, C-level executive and accredited investor. He was the Chief Scientific Officer at eHarmony and created their famous assessment and matching system. He is currently Chief Executive Officer at PsyML, leading the digital humanity movement, in which algorithmic learning systems are used to create digital machines capable of understanding us and engaging with humanity in a positive manner.

Gil Frostig is an accomplished leader with decades of experience in developing and driving new technologies and businesses at Intel and at Qualcomm. He led, grew, and drove new technologies, product lines and P&L’s. Gil also led Intel’s LAN products, started Intel’s WiFi and delivered the solution for the Centrino platform. Gil has rich M&A experience and twenty years of experience advising startups on strategy, roadmap, and growth.

Globally credentialed senior executive of companies across the Fortune 500 to trail blazing startups as entrepreneur, and business operator and investor. As the Managing Director and Global co-leader of Accenture’s Ventures and Open Innovation which he founded, he brought to life Accenture’s value as the partner of choice for Digital Transformations to the C-Suite of the Global 2000. He is a sought after thought leader who has received numerous awards in Innovation & Technology.

Kai has been building companies and products since 1991. He has been involved either as founder, CEO, CTO or COO in 15 startups. He has raised funding and experienced exits ranging from mergers, acquisitions to IPO. When not working on a new venture, Kai has been successfully turning around engineering organizations. Kai’s passion is building successful companies, products and sustainable industry-leading teams.

Dustin Miraglia (aka. Dusti Raw) is a multi-talented producer, sound designer, writer, hip-hop artist, music entrepreneur, and seasoned industry-expert with over 15 years of experience. He went from being deemed the youngest person ever to successfully be ‘Pro Tools’ certified (age 12), to quickly gaining major attention from, and working alongside Grammy-winning artists.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

The story of ALYSIA goes back to when our CEO, Dr. Maya Ackerman, was getting her PhD in Computer Science, and started taking voice lessons as a hobby. Within only nine months, Maya’s newfound passion for singing turned her into a semi-professional opera singer.

As a musician, Maya longed to create her own, original songs. But this proved more difficult than she expected. After years of effort – not only continuing to perfect her art of singing, but also taking piano and improvisation lessons, and learning to be a producer – she was still nowhere near creating a single original song.

Three years later, Maya was already a Computer Science Professor, and was nearly ready to give up on her dream of creating her own, original songs. Just then, she accidentally came across a little known subfield of AI — Computational Creativity.

Computational Creativity views a computer as more than just a tool, but instead as a potential co-creative partner. This changed everything. She immediately knew that she had to create an AI system that would make her dreams come true. Together with David Loker, they created an early prototype of ALYSIA. Within three months, Maya wrote her first song ever!

New Scientist, NBC News, and others, quickly got wind of the amazing new technology that makes songwriting accessible to everyone. Soon, people started emailing us, asking to get access to this technology so that they, too, could create their own songs. That’s when we realized that we couldn’t keep ALYSIA all to ourselves, and embarked on a journey to make this revolutionary technology widely accessible.

It gives us deep pleasure to be able to share ALYSIA with you.

ALYSIA TEAM

FOUNDING TEAM

Dr. Maya Ackerman, PhD

David Loker, MMath

Chris Cassion, MSci

INVESTORS & ADVISORS

Galen Buckwalter, PhD.

Gil Frostig

Jitendra Kavathekar

Kai Mildenberger

Dustin Miraglia

INTERVIEWS WITH OUR CEO

IN THE PRESS

HOW IT ALL BEGAN