As innovation program manager, I am primarily concerned with the innovation projects in which Pipple is active. In 2020, as many as four projects with various European partners. In this we develop various technologies, such as image segmentation, text mining, simulation and optimization models. All of these projects provide opportunities for Pipple to build state of the art knowledge and develop innovative use cases for our customers. For a playing field like data science, where developments are happening at lightning speed, it is incredibly important to be constantly engaged with innovative technologies. We may not keep up with a company like Google, but we have an enormous drive to be at the forefront of the Dutch market.

Innovation

The European insurance market is one with great potential for digital innovation. That’s why we started the EIT Digital project AIDE last year to develop an Artificial Intelligent Damage Estimator. We have now developed a prototype which can recognize damage to a car based on photos. As insurance companies struggle with self-service concepts for private claims insurance to make insurance claims processes cost-effective, initial industry reactions to AIDE are very positive and illustrate the potential to further develop AIDE into an A.I. claims expert for private claims.

In addition to guiding the ongoing innovation projects, I am also setting up new projects for in 2021. This always takes Pipple’s strategy as its starting point. I don’t do that alone; all of Pipple is brought in for this. For example, we organized a pitch round where every Pipple employee could give a pitch for a potential innovation project. We have begun to flesh out some of the ideas that emerged from this round to launch future innovation projects.

Purpose

In addition to my role as Innovation Program Manager, I also serve as Chief Purpose Officer within Pipple. I maintain contacts with nonprofit organizations we support. This started out very small, but is slowly beginning to grow. Pipple is also actively establishing an independent platform where other commercial companies can also join that want to support NGOs. Together we are strong!
Ultimately, that is one of the best things about working at Pipple: in addition to great assignments with clients and great colleagues, we also want to give something back to society. Data science with purpose.

– Erlin Linskens