Sharing machine-learning knowledge with local business

Academics in the School of Computing ^[1] will be working with a local finance company to help them apply machine learning to their processes.

The University of Kent has securing funding to work with Rochester based Fintech company, Portafina Investment Management Ltd, ^[2] on a two year Knowledge Transfer Partnership project.

The project will enable Portafina, a specialist pension advice firm, to apply state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to improve workflow and data processing. This will enable Portafina to increase their efficiency, reduce timescales and enable rapid scalability.

The partnership will recruit a recently qualified postgraduate to deliver the project. This role will be based at Portafina's offices and work under the guidance and support of a team of academics from the School of Computing. The academics will bring a wealth of expertise in areas including developing algorithms for machine learning and text mining tasks, and techniques in natural language processing.

Senior Lecturer, Fernando Otero ^[3] said: ‘The collaboration with Portafina provides a great opportunity for new research around sentiment analysis and machine learning to support decision making using real-world data, strengthening the School of Computing engagement with industries. We are looking forward to get started!’

Jamie Smith-Thompson, MD of Portafina, added: ‘We are very excited to be working with the University of Kent on a number of innovative projects that will have a real impact on our efficiency. Our intention is to make it possible to provide much-needed financial advice to a wider mass-market client base by reducing our back-office costs. We are confident these projects will also enable us to increase service quality at the same time.’

Carole Barron, Director of Kent Innovation and Enterprise ^[4] believes that Knowledge Transfer Partnerships are one of a range of ways in which the University's academic experts link up with national and local businesses to offer practical advice based on their research. Carole said: ‘We are delighted to be entering into this exciting collaboration with Portafina in the area of state-of-the-art machine learning techniques. We look forward to developing a long relationship with Portafina beyond the two year partnership.’

If you are interested in hearing more or to engage with Kent Innovation and Enterprise ^[5] as your business & innovation gateway into the University please get in touch with the team on 01227 827376 or at enterprise@kent.ac.uk