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Jan Romportl, PhD

senior AI consultant

Jan Romportl, PhD
Based in: Czech Republic Czechia Working area: global
Status: at your service Languages: English, Czech, German
Listed in: Development & Tech, Engineering & Industry, Training & Education

There are no silver bullets in AI. The field of artificial intelligence (and the whole world with it) is moving forward at such breakneck speed that the only thing we can strive for is to learn, evolve and adapt. And this is precisely what I will help you to do.

I have almost 20 years of experience in AI as a researcher, entrepreneur, consultant, and executive. I have a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (2004-2009), and I led the O2 AI Centre in Prague as its director and chief data scientist for 7 years up to 2022, when I founded my independent consulting business and an AI startup.

Here’s what I can do for you:

  • AI strategy — Whether you are a top executive in a corporation or a family business owner, you are facing a world increasingly driven by AI. I will help you shape your business strategy for such a world. You will know how to leverage AI or how to defend against it.
  • AI in a product — If you are building a product that has something to do with AI, machine learning, data science, or big data, I will help you achieve excellence. I can also help you restart your current stalling projects, be it in corporations, SMEs, or startups.
  • AI for management and teams — Establishing and managing your own AI and data science teams might be difficult. I will guide you and assist you with talent recruiting and retention strategies. I can also solve complex corporate setups and peculiar caveats connected to AI or big data in your organization.
  • AI due diligence and a second opinion — Are you an investor considering an AI startup? Are you a startup entrepreneur rehearsing how to pitch to an investor? Are you a CEO constantly being told that all AI-related projects in your corporation are doing incredibly great, but your gut feeling tells you otherwise? Let me help you understand the situation better, so you can feel confident in your AI-related decisions.
  • AI safety, compliance and ethics — Let's crack the hard problems of how to make your business models, data models, and AI models ethical, safe, and compliant with both GDPR and the forthcoming EU AI Act.
  • Education and mentoring in AI — Learn how AI really works, how it relates to your business, and how you should prepare for life in the AI world. I can deliver a range of talks, lectures, and workshops aimed at different target audiences: from the lay public through experts in other domains to skilled data scientists. I also offer individual mentoring on a career path and different aspects of AI's transformative potential.
  • Talks, panel discussions, workshops, and other events — Public debate on AI, as a groundbreaking and influential field, is of utmost importance. As humans, as well as experts, we need to meet and talk to weight and consider numerous issues and problems related to AI. I have participated as a speaker and panelist in many events and debates.

Shall we get started? Schedule a call with me, or send me an email at jan@romportl.com.


Talks, panel discussions & other events

Jan Romportl Jan Romportl at PPF’s Innovation Week (Tyden inovaci) Jan Romportl with Martina Viktorie Kopecka at PPF’s Innovation Week (Tyden inovaci) Jan Romportl at the Atlantic Council’s panel discussion AI Connect Jan Romport at the IDC Security Forum Jan Romportl speaking at the IDC Security Forum Jan Romportl at the IDC Security Forum Jan Romportl at the IDC Security Forum Jan Romportl at the IDC Security Forum Jan Romportl at the IDC Security Forum Jan Romportl’s presentation at the IDC Summit Jan Romportl, Machine Learning Prague Jan Romportl, Machine Learning Prague Jan Romportl, Machine Learning Prague Jan Romportl at O2 Media’s Data-based conference Jan Romportl at O2 Media’s Data-based conference

My services

I offer a wide scope of AI-related services that you can explore on my website including prices. Here’s a brief overview:

  • 90-minute online consultation — We can discuss any AI-related topic that fits in 90 minutes, from career and business strategies to technical and theoretical topics.
  • Talks, lectures, and workshops — I often give keynotes and talks at conferences, lectures for target audiences (almost any combination on the business—academic and layman—professional scales), and half-day workshops. I also provide fully customized 1-3 day workshops for companies, as well as a limited number of free and pro-bono talks or lectures for universities, non-profits, and other social impact cases.
  • AI deep dive — Comprehensive and detailed consulting with a deep dive into your issues is excellent for complex topics and projects. Pricing is based on the scale of the project.
  • AI audit
    • You’ll get an honest and straightforward external opinion on the real state of AI in your company. You’ll know where exactly you’re standing in terms of AI, your blindspots and untapped potential. I can also assess the ethical and fairness issues of your machine learning models with regard to the future EU AI Act.
    • I’ll be absolutely open and direct in all our discussions, even when it comes to potentially painful internal topics. You’ll also get a comprehensive written report from me.
    • With my help, you’ll be able to avoid fudging, the hesitance of some internal stakeholders, as well as “AI vendors” selling you snake oil. I will also protect you from the mumbo jumbo of big consulting companies who will in reality try to deploy inexperienced juniors for astronomic man-day rates.
    • The pricing depends on the size of your company and whether you want me to include the ethics assessment and your level of readiness for the EU AI Act.
  • AI strategy
    • You and your key stakeholders will receive a meaningful AI strategy for your company that will not only help your business grow, but will also make it more resilient in the uncertain future and include your readiness for the EU AI Act and ethical compliance.
    • In this process, you will have me fully on your side, not representing any particular product or vendor. I will shape your AI strategy so that it will NOT become a bottomless black hole of expensive man-days of various outsourced or bodyshopped consultants, data scientists, and engineers. Instead, I will guide you in building your own in-house highly skilled and sustainable team that can hands-on execute your AI strategy. Or if you still need an external temporary team, I’ll be their watchdog who cannot be duped by a smart-sounding talk with lots of technical buzzwords. And if your best AI strategy is not to have AI at all, you’ll know this from me soon enough.
    • The pricing depends on the size of your company, and it is also suitable for small and medium businesses.
  • One-off in-person consultation — This is a one-on-one session where we can look more deeply under the hood of similar topics as in the online session. (I do these mostly in Prague and Pilsen, Czechia, but also can do so elsewhere with travel expenses covered.)

About me

I have almost 20 years of expertise as an AI researcher, entrepreneur, consultant, and executive. I'm also a runner, PADI divemaster, private pilot, philosopher, and a lifelong Atari enthusiast and vintage computer collector.

Academic career

If you had asked me ten years ago where I envisaged my professional future, I would have said I wanted to become a prominent AI researcher in academia. Sure enough, I was still full of academic idealism at that time.

I conducted great research projects in the area of man-machine interaction, I was the head of a university department, I had a Ph.D. in AI, a master's in cybernetics, and another master's in philosophy, and I had just returned from an academic visit to Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute. And I wanted to save the world.

However, the local academic treadmill of publish-or-perish culture turned out to be very distant from the real-world impacts I had imagined. So, in 2015, I decided to take a leap of faith and leave my senior academic and management positions at the university to join a corporation as a chief data scientist in O2 Czech Republic.

PPF and O2 Czech Republic

You may wonder why O2. I'll tell you. Because PPF at the time had recently acquired O2 and was damn well situated in the CEE region to make a real impact on things. They had no AI and very scattered and inefficient data science and big data teams here and there. So, I thought, what if we fix it? And why not build excellent AI competencies in O2 and PPF?

Dataclair.ai – center for artificial intelligence

Fast forward seven years to the spring of 2022, I was the founder and CEO of Dataclair — O2 and the PPF Center of AI Excellence. Dataclair has a fantastic team of 40 individuals and is making an impact in various industries, including telecommunications, finance and banking, media, transportation and mobility, ethical machine learning and privacy, and even oncology research.

I had wonderful teammates and wonderful people I reported to, and I learned so much from them. I had completed my mission. So, where should I head next?

Helping people with all things AI

How can I create an even greater impact? I want to help as many people as possible to prepare their businesses and lives for the world pervaded by AI. And I don't just mean technical and business AI. I take these for granted. I truly mean “all things AI,” which includes social, psychological, future-oriented, and risk-related aspects too.

That's why I decided to go the freelance way and dedicate one part of it to helping individual clients. So, now we can join our journeys through direct personal contact.

The AI community and startup projects

The other part of my current professional life is devoted to developing AI startup initiatives with significant societal impact. This is a natural continuation of my long-standing passion for safe, ethical, and useful AI. It stems from the same reasons that I cooperate with the Centre for Theoretical Studies at Charles University and the Czech Effective Altruism Group, as well as why I organize the Prague AI Safety Meetup.

Furthermore, I do my best to be helpful to the Czech AI Safety and Alignment community and I am involved in the global movement for the minimization of existential risks.

Jan Romportl, PhD

Contact details

Jan Romportl, PhD
Teslova 1
Pilsen
301 00
Czech Republic, European Union
Mobile:+420 602 106 880
Email:jan@romportl.com
Website:romportl.com
LinkedIn:janromportl
X (Twitter):JanRomportl

Firsthand recommendations

What I appreciate about Jan, is that he can apply his superb knowledge of AI to business practice. At O2, Jan — among other things — built a credit-scoring model that has had a major financial impact. Moreover, working with him is very rewarding and pleasant.

Tomas Kouril CFO and Vice-Chairman of the Board at O2 Czech Republic

I am extremely happy that Jan became one of the first Inspirators — people who are experts and at the same time great professionals in their field. Jan leads the Artificial and Natural Intelligence workshop for our participants.

Marie Froulikova CEO at KudyKampus, SDG Specialist

Jan Romportl has an excellent background to become your general consultant for all things AI. We haven’t worked together on any specific project yet, but from our conversations, I’ve become convinced that he understands the AI field like few others and I have no hesitation in recommending him as an expert. In fact, he has been involved in AI for a long time at the level of academic research and public outreach, which is great in itself, but he is also putting the technology into practice as an entrepreneur and senior executive. He is therefore perfectly placed to bring this extremely challenging and wide-ranging topic to other entrepreneurs, managers, or investors while covering its many technical and theoretical aspects. Moreover, he is a very friendly and communicative person with whom you will probably get along very well.

Robert Vlach
Robert Vlach business consultant and founder of Freelancing.eu
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