We are pleased to announce that we will be starting the series “AI + Impact - Lightning talks” with a very positive response on this thread.
Our first session details:
When: 03/24/17, 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
Where: USF Room 450
Youtube Live/Recorded link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwhJHzu5BYU
Medium blog post
Talks:
Rachel Thomas : Fast.ai
Jeremy Howard : Enlitic
Samar Haider : Improve NLP for low-resource languages using word embeddings. Forum link
Janardhan Shetty : Early Detection Tool for Autism using Computer Vision + NLP + Speech
Sahil Singla : Better agriculture lending and insurance models using satellite imagery. Forum link
Ljubomir Buturovic : Detecting breast cancer in digital mammograms, forum link
Sara Hooker : Cut Deforestation using audio signals
Sravya Tirukkovalur : Role of AI in Humanitarian response and resilience. Forum link
Some thoughts and FAQ on the series:
Why is it important to talk about applications of AI/DL?
There is little doubt that we all think AI and Deep learning in specific are powerful technologies. Like any powerful tool, it also has a great impact potential. But understanding technology and putting it to good use do not necessarily happen together unless we have an explicit intent and make steady progress in both these tracks. We are understanding the technology and applications through the course work, and this effort is to accelerate our progress in applications of Deep learning, the ones which especially have a good impact potential.
Why should you speak?
Mainly to get feedback on your ideas and potentially find collaborators. Additionally:
- It will be a chance for you to practice your pitch. Do technical public speaking
- And because it would be fun!
What does impact mean?
It can be anything which has a positive effect on the world. Anything from making people’s lives a little better to saving lives. Most businesses have a net positive effect but it would be useful to think about impact potential explicitly like how we think of market size for profits so that we can optimize for impact as well.
How well developed should the ideas be?
This series is mainly to leverage the collective intelligence of this group and help each other in helping others. So please do not hesitate to talk about very early ideas, we never know what can come out of it.
Is there a format for the talk?
The talk would be capped at 5 minutes, to make sure we will be on schedule. But we will have lot more time for discussions and feedback. For format, really whatever works for you. But we encourage covering following things:
- Impact potential /why is it important to solve?
- Challenges: What challenges did you hit or you are concerned about.
- AI fit: How important is AI in the solution.
- Are there market incentives for the solution? Like can we make money? If so how sustainable is it? But of course, solutions which do not have market incentives are also welcome.
- Related work. Who are other players trying to solve the problem? Can we collaborate?
- How can this community help?
Will this be live streamed/recorded?
Yes, we will be live streaming and also be recording the sessions. We will be posting a youtube-live link closer to the date.
How can I get involved?
- Be a speaker. Sign up here
- Join the sessions and provide feedback for other speakers
- Collaborate or offer help to other speakers
- Help in organizing:
- Making sure we have speakers lined up
- Find a time and place which works for speakers and comfortable for in-person attendees in the bay area.
- Send out announcements about the schedule
- Handle video streaming and recording logistics
- Follow up with project threads(speakers can do this)
Hope to see you all this Friday!