About Move78

The story of Move 78 begins in London, with an AI lab called Deepmind, where an artificially intelligent system called AlphaGo was ‘trained’ to play the ancient Chinese strategic board game, Go. In 2016, AlphaGo was paired in a five game tournament against Go grandmaster Lee Sedol, who is widely regarded as the best Go player of all time.

AlphaGo claimed victory in the first three games of the series, surprising commentators with the ‘creativity’ of its strategy. By game four, Sedol realized he too must think about the game differently after years of playing the same way. This results in an extraordinary move, the 78th move of the game, which allows Sedol to beat AlphaGo in game four.

Move 78 is regarded as a profound moment in our relationship with AI, when the capacity of AI to ignite human potential became evident.

Rick has over 30 years experience in multiple roles in the industrial wholesale and distribution field.

Over the years, Rick also participated in industry associations to promote and drive adoption of technology in distribution. He worked with various project such as NAED's Frost and Sullivan Digital Maturity Survey, he was a founding chairman of Electro Federation of Canadas Supply Chain Digitization committee and a strategic advisor for industry Product Data synchronization.

During his time at Rexel, Rick led various Automation and AI integration projects across a range of business functions, working closely with the solution providers. He is an active participant in a number of AI-Leader consortium and ethics groups.

Rick's expertise in digital channel expansion includes multichannel audits, EDI/CXML optimization, P2P Service model enhancements, Punchout Level 2/Ariba guided buying experience and Customer API connectivity.