Elad Yom-Tov

Role: Keynote
Affiliation: Microsoft Research

Biography:

Elad Yom-Tov is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and a visiting scientist at the Technion, Israel. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was with Yahoo Research, the Machine Learning group at IBM Research Haifa Lab, and Rafael. He did his M.A. and Ph.D. at the Technion. The focus of his work is on using Internet data to improve health and medicine by applying tools from Machine Learning and Information Retrieval.

Abstract:

Over the past few years, researchers have demonstrated that Internet data, including social media, search engine queries and, more recently, novel interaction data, can be used to screen for serious health conditions. In my talk I will show overview some of these advances, examining illnesses ranging from influenza to cancer and Parkinson’s disease. In my presentation I will discuss the advantages and shortcomings of the various approaches to such screening. These new capabilities have the potential to allow Internet companies to predict the development of serious medical conditions in people who use their services, thus creating new opportunities, and perhaps new responsibilities. I will discuss some of the ways in which this information can be provided to people, and the moral and ethical issues created by this information.