From How AI Works to How AI Changes Everything | The Gen-C

About the Event

Talk 1: From Noise to Data: Understanding Modern Generative Models

How does a generative AI model turn something as simple as random noise into a meaningful image?

This sharing session explores the fundamental ideas behind modern generative models through three perspectives: Diffusion, Score Matching, and Flow Matching. We will see how each approach transforms a simple distribution into a complex data distribution — by denoising, navigating, or transporting probability. We then connect these ideas to practical image-generation architectures, exploring why modern models often generate in latent space rather than directly in pixel space, how Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) provide compact and structured representations, and how Diffusion Transformers (DiT) use attention to model relationships within these representations.

Finally, we bring the pieces together in an end-to-end view of image generation, following the journey from a random latent representation to a generated image, before briefly looking at how these ideas extend to multimodal generative models. Participants will also learn about AI’s limitations, potential risks, and considerations for responsible use.

Pooi Sun Eng is a Banking Application Specialist with expertise in real-time online programming for digital banking systems used by major banks in Singapore and Malaysia. Her experience spans a range of critical banking platforms, including ATMs, internet banking, and debit/credit card systems. Notably, she recently led the transformation of the bank’s encryption infrastructure, migrating from the Luna black box to the Thales black box.

Talk 2: What Happens When Everyone Has AI?

AI is becoming increasingly accessible. The tools that once gave early adopters a significant advantage are now available to almost everyone. So, if everyone has access to powerful AI, where does our competitive advantage come from?

In this session, we’ll go beyond prompts, tools and AI demos to explore…