Noor Shaker facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Noor Shaker نور شاكر
Noor Shaker
Nationality	Syrian British
Occupation	entrepreneur and computer scientist

Noor Shaker is a smart computer scientist and business person from Syria and Britain. She helped start a company called Glamorous AI. This company uses artificial intelligence (AI) to find new medicines. In November 2021, a company from the US called X-Chem bought Glamorous AI. Before this, Noor started another company called GTN Ltd that also worked on finding new medicines. She was the boss of GTN Ltd for over two years. In 2018, she won a special award from Prime Minister Theresa May. The award was for her amazing AI technology that helps find ways to treat long-term illnesses.

Noor Shaker's Journey

Her Education and Early Work

Noor Shaker studied computer science at the University of Damascus in Syria. She quickly became very interested in artificial intelligence. While studying, she helped create software that could turn written Arabic words into speech.

Later, she moved to Belgium to get her master's degree at KU Leuven. She continued to focus on artificial intelligence there. In 2009, she moved to Denmark to study for her PhD. She also worked as a researcher in machine learning at the IT University of Copenhagen.

Noor stayed in Copenhagen for several years. In 2016, she became a professor at Aalborg University. Her research looked at how machine learning could be used in video games. She helped organize contests where people created AIs to play video games. They also made AIs that could create new levels for games like Super Mario. During her time as a professor, she wrote a textbook and over thirty academic papers.

Starting New Companies

In 2017, Noor Shaker helped start GTN Ltd. This company aimed to combine quantum computing and AI to discover new medicines. Quantum computing uses the rules of tiny particles to solve problems. Noor was the boss of GTN Ltd until August 2019. The company later closed in March 2020. GTN Ltd wanted to use machine learning and quantum physics to find better treatments. They hoped to predict how different molecules would interact to fight diseases.

In 2020, Noor started her third company, Glamorous AI, in London. This company continued her goal of finding new ways to discover medicines. Glamorous AI combines what expert chemists know with advanced machine learning. This helps them quickly find new chemicals with the right properties.

Noor and Glamorous AI worked with universities, like Cardiff University. They used Glamorous AI's special platform, RosalindAI, to look for possible COVID-19 drugs. In November 2021, a US company called X-Chem bought Glamorous AI. This was to add AI abilities to their early drug discovery work. Now, Noor Shaker is a Senior Vice President at X-Chem's London office.

Noor is also part of an advisory group for Artificial Intelligence at the Rosalind Franklin Institute.

Awards and Recognitions

Noor Shaker has received many awards. In 2021, she was named one of the Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech. The BBC also named her one of the 100 Women in 2019. She was called a 'Rising Star' in BioBeat's 2018 list of 50 important people in BioBusiness. For her work with GTN, she won a CogX UK Rising Star Award in 2018. This was for her new AI methods in drug discovery and for getting important funding and partnerships.

Noor often speaks at AI events, especially those for women in the industry. She also leads a committee for the Institute of Electrical and IEEE that focuses on AI in games.

Awards and honours

• 2013: IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games Outstanding Paper Award for ‘Crowd-sourcing the Aesthetics off Platform Games’.
• 2018: Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review
• 2018: 50 Movers and Shakers in BioBusiness by BioBeat
• 2018: Rising Star by CogX
• 2019: BBC 100 Women
• 2021: Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech 2021

See also

In Spanish: Noor Shaker para niños