Matthew Bottomley
Matthew is currently Director of Canine Strategies Limited, following a long and successful career in the Guide Dog world. Whilst time was served predominantly at Guide Dogs UK, it also included considerable international collaboration, including work as an International Guide Dog Federation Assessor.
After 34 years at Guide Dogs UK in various roles, he has developed skills and expertise in breeding, training, operational delivery and management, as well as considerable experience in media, communications, fundraising, facilities design and volunteering, and now consults extensively in these fields. Given his experience and expertise in these areas, Matthew has often been interviewed by the BBC and other news media outlets as a source of information, relevance and truth, and has featured in several documentaries and entertainment shows, including Celebrity MasterChef, Blue Peter, Escape to the Country and The Journey of a Guide Dog.
A qualified Guide Dog Mobility Instructor and certified Green Belt in Lean Six Sigma principles, Matthew utilised these skills in his role as Head of Breeding Operations to successfully manage the world’s largest Assistance Dog breeding programme for many years. Together with the hugely dedicated team of staff and volunteers at Guide Dogs, Matthew has overseen successful production of over 20,000 puppies, who have gone on to become life changers for people in need. Matthew is passionate about helping those disadvantaged through disability to lead the lives they wish to, without barriers, and has been privileged to help many people with sight loss regain their confidence and independence through provision of a Guide Dog.
Since leaving Guide Dogs UK, Matthew has been invited to consult with various organisations around the world and in March 2023 was asked to speak at the World Police Summit in Dubai. It was at the Summit in Dubai that Matthew saw artificially intelligent ‘robotic dogs’ demonstrating and performing detection tasks useful for police forces and the military.
Inspired by what he had seen, Matthew thought there may be potential in using these robotic ‘dogs’ as a service to people with disabilities or anyone in need of task assistance or improvement in their independence and wellbeing, much in the same way as Assistance Dog organisations currently operate. And together with Chris, AI Robotic Assistance Dogs was born.
Christopher Thomas
Christopher Thomas, with an honours degree in AI and Machine Learning, is a innovator who has dedicated over 23 years to advancing technology in various fields. His journey into Artificial Intelligence began more than two decades ago, marked by a cited thesis on image processing and edge detection using Machine Learning, Evolutionary Programming and Genetic Algorithms. This work has been recognized in five academic papers, illustrating Christopher’s early contributions to the field.
As a Professional Member of the Institute of Analysts and Programmers and a technical reviewer for the Springer Nature Group in AI and Deep Learning publications, Chris has influenced the academic and professional realms of AI. His work in developing efficient Computer Vision Neural Networks for EdgeAI has been particularly notable.
Chris's expertise has been sought globally. He plays a role in a Global Education Project, joining forces with entities such as Imagination Technologies, Madrid University, and Peking University. Here, he served as a Consultant and Technical Reviewer, sharing his knowledge in EdgeAI with budding minds across the world.
His interest in Robotics was further nurtured at Birmingham University under the mentorship of Professor Jeremy Wyatt, a figure now leading Applied Science at Amazon Robotics.
In 1998, Christopher embarked on a defining project – training his first neural network. This early achievement was a precursor to his later accomplishments, including setting records for training model accuracy in the Fashion MNIST dataset.
Christopher’s involvement in AI projects and Generative AI speaks to his versatility and forward-thinking approach. This, combined with his deep understanding of Ethical AI and his accomplishments as a graduate of many fast.ai courses, positions him as a leader in responsible AI development.
As a keen author on both cutting edge and introductory Artificial Intelligence topics within the Towards Data Science publication and elsewhere, Christopher articles have been read over half a million times including one being cited in University theses.
Christopher is currently the Director of the AI and Technology consulting firm Thought Vector Limited. Through his career Christopher has worked internationally with clients in the automotive sector, having also worked in the semiconductor industry, medical, Government, communications and marketing sectors.
As the co-founder of Robotic Assistance Dogs AI , Chris brings his rich history in AI and a lifelong passion for technology – dating back to his early childhood programming days on the Commodore pet and ZX Spectrum in the 1980s and his early use of Speech synthesis on AmigaOS. With the current pace of innovation in AI both in Robotics and EdgeAI, Chris believes that now is the time technology can be used to create a practical Robotic Assistance Dog.