MANTISNLP - Key Persons

Danil Mikhailov

Job Titles:
  • Executive Director of Data.Org
Danil Mikhailov, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of data.org where he heads a talented, international team. During his tenure, data.org has launched global data and AI for social impact programs in climate, health, and financial inclusion to build digital public goods, train a new generation of purpose-driven data practitioners, and design sustainable data ecosystems in Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and the US. Through a strong commitment to partnerships, Danil has led collaboration with the G7, G20, the UN, and a network of philanthropic, academic, and private sector partners. Danil strongly believes in the power of interdisciplinarity and, in addition to his tech expertise, he brings a social sciences and humanities perspective to his work.

Doug Ayres

Job Titles:
  • Strategic Business Leader
Doug Ayres is a strategic business leader and current CEO of EBM, a chatbot technology and services business spun out of Filament Consulting Group. At EBM, Doug oversees the delivery of comprehensive chatbot solutions, incorporating advanced technology and professional services. Doug co-founded Filament Consulting Group in 2016, a software consultancy specializing in machine learning technologies. His earlier ventures include FUSE, a digital agency he co-founded in 2004, which was later sold to IPG in 2011. Doug provides strategic advice to the leadership team.

Matthew Upson

Matthew Upson, Ph.D. started working on Natural Language Processing (NLP) in 2015 as a data scientist in the UK Government Digital Service, where he developed 'Reproducible Analytical Pipelines' for Official Statistics, an approach which has since been included in Government strategy in 2022. Since then, Matt has held a number of employed and contract roles in start-ups and NGOs, before co-founding Mantis in 2021. Matt is also a founding member of the Royal Statistical Society's Data Science Section and a fellow of the Software Sustainability Institute. His book 'Open Source MLOps', is due be published in 2024.