Dr. Ben Goertzel Joins VZillion as Director of Engineering

MIAMI, Nov. 3, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- VZillion is proud to announce it has hired renowned AI developer Dr. Ben Goertzel to join its team as Director of Engineering. In this position, Ben will be the chief architect of VZillion's effort to design its proprietary machine learning system as part of the company's ambition to create a supremely intelligent platform for its users and brand partners.

One of the world's leading authorities on artificial intelligence and its application to digital media, Ben has been designing advanced machine learning, data mining and spatiotemporal reasoning systems for over 20 years for the US government and the private sector, including such hedge funds as Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital. Among many of Ben's accomplishments and awards, he has published over 8 books on artificial intelligence and published almost one hundred scientific papers on the topic. He was a lead AI architect for stockMood.com, a website for analyzing the sentiment of financial news, which won the Thomson Reuters Award at TechCrunch 2008. Ben's full resume can be found at: www.goertzel.org/resume.htm .

"There are a couple things you have to get right when you are building something from the ground up," says VZillion's founder and President Antonio Collier. "The culture must be at the forefront of the company's vision. Being interconnected with our users and employees is central to our success. Next is talent. We have been blessed to have some of the most innovative and creative minds become a part of this building process and to now add such a brilliant unmatched mind in the field of AI speaks volumes. Landing Ben at such an early stage in VZillion's maturation process is beyond incredible. Our mission is to develop 'A Web of One' for our user that actively and intelligently assists them in finding relevant things they are interested in. Ben allows us to take one giant step forward."

Ben Goertzel says: "I see a lot of me-too technology startups out there, and not that much radical innovation. This is what attracted to me VZillion: they have a fundamentally different approach to the user experience, to the interface between people and media and the use of media to help people interface with each other. They are really trying to break new ground in terms of what the Web is and what it can do for people.  I am looking forward to working with the VZillion team to apply artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies to help bring the Web to the next level."

SOURCE VZillion