Sparrho Explained

Sparrho
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Url:www.sparrho.com
Programming Language:Clojure[1]
Owners:-->
Author:Vivian Chan, Nilu Satharasinghe
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Sparrho combines human and artificial intelligence to help research professionals and layman users stay up-to-date with new scientific publications and patents.[2] Sparrho's recommendation engine provides personalized scientific news-feeds by using proprietary machine learning algorithms to "aggregate, distill and recommend" relevant content.[3] The platform aims to complement traditional methods of finding relevant academic material such as Google Scholar, and PubMed with a system which enables the serendipitous discovery of content and across relevant scientific fields.[4]

Recommendation engine

Sparrho uses a "three-pronged approach" to content recommendation. Firstly, "data-data analysis" is tackled using techniques such as natural language processing to provide appropriate research based on data provided by users.[5] Secondly, "user-user interactions" are utilized to propose a wider range of potentially relevant subject areas to users with similar interests.[6] Finally, "user-data interactions" such as labeling articles as "relevant" or "irrelevant" within a particular scientific field allows Sparrho to personalize user newsfeeds.[7]

History

Sparrho was founded in 2013 by Vivian Chan and Nilu Satharasinghe as a solution to issues Chan encountered over the course of her biochemistry PhD at the University of Cambridge, especially in staying up to date with scientific literature [8] [9] [10] Initially established at Ideaspace in West Cambridge, and moving subsequently to Camden Collective[11] and the Ministry of Startups[12] in London, the company is now based in the data science hub SHACK15 in Shoreditch, London.[13]

In 2014, Chan was a semi-finalist for the 2014 Duke of York New Entrepreneur of the Year Award,[14] [15] and in 2015, Chan was included on the 35 Women Under 35 list compiled by Management Today.[16] In 2016, Sparrho was a semi-finalist in Pitch@Palace 5.0.[17]

As of July 2017, Sparrho has raised $3 million from investors including White Cloud Capital, AllBright, and Beast Ventures.[18]

Competitors

Sparrho's primary competitors are PubChase and Scizzle,[10] [19] though both PubChase and Scizzle are targeted towards biomedical sciences and solely recommend academic journal papers.[20] [21]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Sparrho's technology stack. StackShare.
  2. Web site: About Sparrho. Sparrho.
  3. Web site: Sparrho: the discovery platform with a bird's eye view on science. Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable.
  4. Web site: INTERVIEW: Content Recommendation Platform Sparrho Talks Staying On Top Of Science. StrategyEye - Digital Media.
  5. Web site: Peeking under the hood: Sparrho's Discovery Engine. Sparrho.
  6. Book: Glenski . Maria . Weninger . Tim . Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining 2017 . Predicting User-Interactions on Reddit . 2017-07-31 . https://doi.org/10.1145/3110025.3120993 . ASONAM '17 . New York, NY, USA . Association for Computing Machinery . 609–612 . 10.1145/3110025.3120993 . 978-1-4503-4993-2. 1707.00195 . 649910 .
  7. Web site: Sparrho - How does our recommendation engine for science work?. Sparrho.
  8. News: Cambridge's leading tech startups. Nicola Davis. The Guardian. December 2013 .
  9. Web site: Why EF. ef..
  10. How to tame the flood of literature. Nature News & Comment. 2014 . 10.1038/513129a . Gibney . Elizabeth . 513 . 7516 . 129–130 . 25186906 .
  11. Web site: Sparrho finds a new nest!. Sparrho.
  12. Web site: Tech Pitch: Sparrho. Startups.co.uk.
  13. Web site: This Search Engine Uses AI to Keep Scientists Updated. SHACK15 News.
  14. Web site: National Business Awards 2014 - Finalists. nationalbusinessawards.co.uk.
  15. Web site: Vivian Chan of Sparrho one of ten semi-finalists competing for the Duke of York New Entrepreneur of the Year Award next week. Cambridge News.
  16. Web site: I've never been regarded as weak' - 35 Women Under 35 2015. Management Today.
  17. Web site: Sparrho will attend Pitch@Palace 5.0 hosted by HRH The Duke of York at St James Palace on 7th March 2016. Sparrho.
  18. Web site: Sparrho raises $3 million to democratize access to science research. VentureBeat.
  19. Web site: Diving into the haystack to make more hay?. plos.org.
  20. Web site: PubChase - discover life sciences research of interest to you.. PubChase.
  21. Web site: Scizzle - Frequently Asked Questions. Scizzle.