Kerala Born Security Researcher Sreya Francis Grabs Nomination For AIconics Award

Sreya Francis, a Kerala-based AI researcher in Canada has been nominated for the prestigious AIconics Solutions Implementer of the Year award. The award was given by the International AI Summit. Sreya belongs to Cherthala in Alappuzha and currently works as Head of Technical Innovation at Farm Mutual Re in Waterloo, Canada. Sreya Francis is among the five shortlisted achievers for the prestigious prize, which honors work related to AI-centric security aspects.

Sreya graduated from Thrikkakara Model Engineering College, Kerala, and has attended several International conferences related to security aspects of AI. Sreya Francis was selected from more than 1000 entries globally. However, a public vote will decide the winner, which will be declared on the sidelines of the International AI Summit to be held in Javits Center, New York on December 6.

According to her mother Susan, Sreya also mentored young talents in the field of AI. Moreover, she is a strong advocate for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and is currently a member of the Equity and Diversity Council at Farm Mutual Re.

Commenting on the nomination, Sreya’s mother Susan disclosed that she has a unique blend of excellence in core and Applied AI research, technical leadership, and industrial innovation. Sreya Francis also invented a mechanism to merge distributed machine learning, casual machine learning, and blockchain to decentralize AI. She also developed Casual Federated Learning, which was later adopted by Microsoft Research Laboratory and IBM Research.

Sreya Francis is the recipient of the Microsoft Diversity Award in 2021 and 2021. She also conducted AI research in Privacy Preserving Machine Learning at the Montreal Institute of Learning Algorithm (MILA), Canada. She also participated in AI and robotics projects conducted by Wipro and Panasonic including TATA Elxsi. Sreya is the daughter of Dr MV Francis and Susan Thomas who lives in Kerala.