Mohali-based Plaksha University has recently organized ConfAI, its annual event on data science & AI. Top industry experts and veterans in academia have participated at the event
Plaksha University, one of India’s leading tech universities, has recently organized ConfAI, an annual academic conference on artificial intelligence (AI) on its Mohali campus. As the field of data science and AI/ML takes precedence, the event aligns perfectly with the university’s purpose of reimagining tech education to solve complex problems of the world. The conference focused on fundamental contributions in the areas of AI and data science, including the theory of AI, AI for social good and techno-philosophy among others.
The aim of the conference was to showcase the potential of AI and data science in finding effective solutions to various societal challenges. A disruptor and a leader in driving the next big change in the Indian tech education ecosystem, Plaksha University hosted top academicians, both international and domestic, industry leaders and representatives of other universities and startups to debate and discuss the most recent advances in AI and to use it as means to promote equity in society, while embracing diversity.
“ConfAI has been an initiative of growing interest that has attracted a large number of contributed research papers presenting effective solutions to navigate and address complex global problems in the field of healthcare, agriculture and language among others. This year ConfAI has focused on AI and data science to level up awareness among our students on the implications of newer technologies and latest research. These kinds of academic conferences remain indispensable to promote knowledge sharing and networking opportunities for all stakeholders and we look forward to hosting more such conferences in the near future,” said Prof. Rudra Pratap, Founding Vice-Chancellor, Plaksha University.
Prof. Rajesh Gupta, Professor & Qualcomm Endowed Chair, UC San Diego and one of the General Co-chairs of ConfAI, said, “I would like to congratulate Plaksha for bringing together prominent AI experts, researchers, and scholars to share their insights on the latest developments in this field. I am grateful for having me as part of the General co-chairs for ConfAI. This was a thrilling experience to have heard so many industry experts. I look forward to the future conferences as well.”
Dr. Shalini Sarin, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Elektromobilitat India, said, “I’m overwhelmed at being a part of ConfAI this year. I’m glad to have the privilege to hear from renowned speakers and participate in the panel discussion on AI for energy. I would like to extend my gratitude and best wishes to Plaksha for organising a conference like this where knowledge sharing is at its peak.”
The conference boasted an exceptional lineup of speakers. Dr. Rajeev Rastogi, Vice President, Machine Learning, Amazon, delivered the keynote speech; while, Dr. Rohini Srivathsa, National Technology Officer, Microsoft India spoke about Demystifying Generative AI. Dr. Vivek Raghavan, Chief Architect of Aadhaar, expressed his views about ‘Indian Language AI as Digital Public Good’.
Dr. Vasudeva Varma from IIIT Hyderabad, who discussed generating encyclopedic content in Indian languages, its challenges and opportunities. Dr. Siddharth Barman from IISc talked about collective welfare as a metric in algorithmic decision making. Dr. Abhinav Dhall from IIT Ropar spoke about emotion-aware AI. The conference also included contributed paper presentations and an invited talk by Dr. Parag Singla from IIT Delhi on exploiting underlying problem structure for improved generalizability and interpretability in neural models.
Also, Plaksha University organised a thought-provoking panel discussion on ‘Diversity & Inclusion in AI’ featuring renowned panelists Nishtha Dewani from IBM, Dr. Rohini Srivathsa from Microsoft, and Dr. Sudhir Voleti from ISB Institute of Data Science, moderated by Dr. Nandini Kannan, Director, Data Science Institute, Plaksha University and one of the Co-chairs of ConfAI.
A panel discussion on AI-ML for clean energy was also held, with panelists including Prof. Rajesh Gupta from UC San Diego, Dr. Amarjeet Singh from Zenatix Solutions, Prasad Vaidya from Solar Decathlon India, Dr. Shalini Sarin from Elektromobilitat India, the panel discussion was moderated by Prof. Vishal Garg from Plaksha University.
Qaisar
