Mr. Frondoni and Mr. Hirnschall awarded
Mr. Matteo Frondoni and Mr. Christoph Hirnschall, our recent MTEC MSc graduates, have been recognized with the "ETH Medal 2017" and the “Willie Studer Prize 2017” , respectively, for their outstanding master studies.
external page Mr. Frondoni's research explores the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Swiss Telecommunications, Information Technology, Media and Entertainment (TIME) industry and on the possible strategies that local TIME players can leverage in their home market to effectively compete with global technology companies.The thesis identified “Data”, “Algorithms” and “Computing Power” as the major factors driving the swift progress in Artificial Intelligence. The analysis of strategy deployed by companies at the forefront of innovation in Artificial Intelligence along these dimensions revealed the importance of data ecosystems, M&As and open innovation for companies willing to successfully exploit its potential. In this regard, particularly interesting finding is that for local telecommunications companies, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data represent an opportunity to bring differentiation through local factors to a new level. Leveraging regional factors and exploiting the increasing analytical capabilities at their disposal, they can build and position themselves at the centre of so-called “local data ecosystems”, building barriers to entry to global TIME players and gaining even more relevance in the life of their customers.
Mr. Frondoni received ETH Medal 2017 for his outstanding master studies. Mr. Frondoni wrote his master thesis at the Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation, with Prof. Georg von Krogh as the responsible tutor and Mr. Yash Raj Shrestha as his mentor.
external page Mr. Hirnschall's thesis titled "Online Learning with Structural Information with Applications to Online Markets" discuss a novel approach to incentivize users to explore rarely selected items in online market places. Motivated by the problem of learning the incentives users require to choose infrequently reviewed items, the thesis introduce an online algorithm for learning with structural information, and derive formal guarantees on its performance. To test the viability of the approach, a user study with data of apartments on Airbnb.com was conducted. Findings suggest that designed algorithm is well suited to increase exploration on the investigated marketplaces.
Mr. Hirnschall received Willie Studer Prize 2017 for his outstanding master studies. Mr. Hirnschall wrote his master thesis under the co-supervision of Prof. Georg von Krogh and Mr. Yash Raj Shrestha (at the Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation) and Prof. Andreas Krause, Dr. Sebastian Tschiatschek and Dr. Adish Singla (at Learning and Adaptive Systems Group).
Congratulations to both!