Over 300 participants from 15 countries attended the 2nd AI International Conference at HIT

The International Conference AI2 "- Artificial Intelligence Academy and Industry", was held at the Institute and broadcasted to 15 countries.

Dr. Jonathan Schler, Prof. Yosef Ben Ezra and Panel of Speakers.  Photo: Andrei Gelman

The Department of Computer Sciences held the "AI2 Artificial Intelligence Academy and Industry" conference, which was designed to bring about a dialogue between lecturers and students in academia and industry, together with key professional technology leaders.

This year the main theme of the conference was "Natural Language Processing" - a field of Artificial Intelligence that allows interfaces between machine and text processing , NLP ( Natural Language processing). This field is very advanced today in applied research and so the 'open call' was answered by a significant number of researchers from academia as well as research institutes of companies such as IBM, Google, and start-ups which wanted to show their latest developments at the forefront of technology.

Prof. Eduard Yakubov, President of HIT.  Photo: Andrei Gelman

The conference's two keynote speakers: Dr. Roberto Pieracicni, director at Google Switzerland, lectured via Zoom from Zurich, reviewing the development of "Google Assistance" and the development of voice interfaces over the years facing the complex challenges of industrial application.

Dr. Roy Bar-Haim, from IBM's research laboratory in Haifa, a member of the Debater project team, reviewed the platform and its components, and talked about the article published in "Nature" magazine and its implications.

Dr. Nava Shaked and Panel of Speakers.  Photo: Andrei Gelman 

The importance of the conference lies within its purpose to connect between academia and industry, through issues related to Artificial Intelligence, challenges in the ethics of artificial intelligence-regulation, responsibility, privacy, setting boundaries and dealing with discrimination and data processing.

Dr. Arriel Benis.  Photo: Andrei Gelman

These are important topics that the academy deals with, in particular HIT Holon Institute of Technology, which trains the next generation of Israeli technology leaders, who are exposed during their studies to projects and key figures in leading companies in the field, dealing with areas which are the cutting edge of technology such as Autonomous Vehicles, Monitoring, Cyber Security etc.

The conference, which was organized by Dr. Jonathan Schler, Head of the Dept. of Computer Science, Dr. Nava Shaked, Head of the School of Multidisciplinary Studies at HIT, and Dr. Jonathan Rubin, Lecturer in the Department of Digital Medical Technologies, was held throughout the day and included 8 lectures by key figures in academia and industry, 2 experts panels and 2 plenary lectures by key- note speakers.

Dr. Roy Bar-Haim, from IBM's research laboratory in Haifa.  Photo: Andrei Gelman

Prof. Eduard Yakubov, President of HIT, said in his welcome remarks, that in the current era, academia and industry must be intertwined. "Technological innovation and artificial intelligence are around us every day and everywhere," said Prof. Yakubov.

"For more than 50 years, the Institute of Technology has trained experts in all technological professions and continues to lead in its field, as evidenced by the tens of thousands of graduates integrated in key positions in the industry. We believe the high-tech industry will increase its involvement in education. As part of this vision we are planning to build in the future, a designated building on campus, which will host Hi-tech ventures, greenhouses and startups. There is no doubt that such conferences promote and strengthen the important ties between academia and industry", the President concluded.

Prof. Ezra Zeheb, Faculty of Sciences Dean.  Photo: Andrei Gelman

Dr. Roy Bar-Haim, a senior researcher at IBM Research Laboratories in Haifa and a member of the well-known Debate Project team, was one of the keynote speakers at the conference. He said that such conferences are a good and important opportunity to hear what is being done both in the industry and academia. According to him, the research levels in the industry have improved a great deal regarding the field of AI and that major companies such as Google and IBM are promoting the topic in research. 

Dr. Nava Shaked and Dr. Roberto Pieracicni.  Photo: Andrei Gelman

There are interesting implementations and applications which take place in startups and the academia, so it is very important to keep holding such conferences. For students, it is especially important to attend them, because they can hear about what is actually done in the field and widen their horizons as to what can be achieved with their diploma after graduation in this field.

 Posted: 31/03/2022