March @ Amii | Kickstart Program, DLRL Summer School + REMI Agriculture

After a long Alberta winter, we here at Amii are ready for spring. Not only are we excited to walk outside without a jacket -- we are also looking forward to some upcoming programs:

• We are thrilled to be launching the Kickstart Program! Evolving from the AlbertaWomen.AI series, Kickstart welcomes early-career women- and female-identifying individuals who are gearing up to start their careers in AI. Learn more and apply at amii.ca/kickstart!
• Applications are now open for the CIFAR Deep Learning + Reinforcement Learning (DLRL) Summer School, one of the world’s foremost international training programs for advanced trainees in machine learning. Held in partnership with CIFAR, Amii, Mila and the Vector Institute, the school runs July 26-31 and brings together 300 trainees from around the world to learn from and network with the brightest minds in AI. Applications close April 9 -- learn more and apply at https://dlrl.ca/.
• Twenty incredible companies completed the first Reducing Emissions through Machine Intelligence (REMI) Energy cohort this February. We are welcoming the REMI Agriculture cohort this month with Phase 1 kicking off mid-March.

There is a myriad of events this month! Scroll down for a full list of all the good stuff that’s happening.

See you over video chat soon, 

Cam

March Highlights: Research, Industry, Community and Training

Industry & Community Updates:

• The February Virtual AI Meetup featured George Varkey (MBA Intern at Amii) on AI in Agriculture as well as Wayne Madhlangobe & Farnoush Farnia from Intelius AI on their ML development approach in a container!
• WaiTALK is a series co-organized by the Edmonton and Calgary chapters of Women in AI and powered by Amii, taking an inside look at the career journeys of successful women in AI.
• A new scholarship program funded by DeepMind is helping to foster diversity in artificial intelligence research at the University of Alberta.
• Techstars Startup Weekend Alberta takes place March 26-28. The special event hosted by Startup Calgary, Platform Calgary and Startup Edmonton will teach participants how to launch a startup over the course of a weekend! Amii is proud to participate as mentors to the budding founders. 
• Startup Edmonton had its largest Student DevCon ever this year, with over 800 attendees from around the world. The event featured an AI & ML track hosted by Amii.

Research Updates:

• Congratulations to Martha White (Amii Fellow & Canada CIFAR AI Chair, UAlberta Associate Prof), who was named one of the world’s top AI researchers to watch by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)!
• Amii researcher Sunil Vasu Kalmady and Russ Greiner (Amii Fellow & Canada CIFAR AI Chair, UAlberta Prof) have been making headlines after publishing research on an AI tool to predict schizophrenia by analyzing brain scans. 
• The COMARL Virtual Seminar Series explores challenges and opportunities for multi-agent reinforcement learning with biweekly seminars hosted virtually. Watch the first talk by Michael Bowling (Amii Fellow & Canada CIFAR AI Chair, UAlberta Prof), "Hindsight Rationality: Alternatives to Nash".
• At the February 12 AI Seminar, Dr. Denise Campbell-Scherer presented on The Illuminate Project, an initiative which generated sensemaking data to understand the evolving impacts of COVID-19.
• Karen Willsey presented at the February 5 AI Seminar on the creation of WeStretch, a program that uses AI to generate unique and customized stretching routines.

Training Updates:

• Earlier this year on an Amii livestream, community leaders shared exciting opportunities for women in AI and showcased the province-wide approach to developing female leadership in AI.
• Are you interested in learning about AI & ML but don't know where to start? Check out our ML Foundations 1 class, happening online on April 1 -- register now! 
• If you’ve already taken ML Foundations 1, dive deeper into the technical topics at ML Foundations 2! Register now for the April 8 class.

Introducing the Kickstart Program

Kickstart is a new program evolving from last year's popular AlbertaWomen.AI series. From April to August, early-career women- and female-identifying students who are gearing up to start their careers in AI will gather to engage in five sessions. The program offers:

• Exposure to companies and career opportunities in AI-related fields
• Increased technical knowledge and understanding of applied machine learning
• Access to diverse female-identifying mentors in STEM-related organizations
• A network of like-minded peers from a range of levels of skill sets and experiences

Applications are open until April 13, 2021.

Apply now

Upcoming Events

March 16: WaiTALK - Inside Look at Career Journeys in Research Based AI

Amii Fellows & Canada CIFAR AI Chairs Alona Fyshe and Nidhi Hegde will speak alongside Amii researcher Anna Koop at this Women in AI Canada (WAI) event, hosted by both the Edmonton and Calgary chapters and powered by Amii. The first talk in this two-part series is moderated by WAI Edmonton’s Bernie Kollman, and examines career highlights and challenges from a personal perspective of a career in research in AI.

Register now

March 18: Virtual AI Meetup

Gather with the brightest minds in the AI community from Alberta and beyond at Amii’s Virtual AI Meetup! Each meetup features two presenters; at the end of each presentation, participants will have the opportunity to participate in a Q&A session.

We have great speakers scheduled: Salome Perez (PhD Student, University of Nebraska) will share her research on innovating cybersecurity solutions in emerging Android and IoT-based applications, and Reg Ouellette (VP of Engineering) & Alex Trad (Director of Business Development) from Chata Technologies Inc. will discuss the importance of high-quality training data for successful AI development.

RSVP today!

March 19: AI Seminar – Yuhong Guo

Yuhong Guo is a Professor in the School of Computer Science at Carleton University, a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at Amii, and a Canada Research Chair in Machine Learning. Yuhong focuses on learning useful data representations and accurate classification models under various circumstances. Her ultimate research goal is to automate the learning process and reduce the dependence of learning systems on human guidance.

Register now

March 26: AI Seminar – Dustin Morrill

Amii researcher at the University of Alberta Dustin Morrill presents “Hindsight Rationality and Efficient Deviation Types in Extensive-Form Games”. In this talk, he suggests to field learning algorithms that ensure strong performance in hindsight relative to "deviations" (pre-defined behaviour modifications) in two-player, zero-sum games.

Register now

April 14: WaiTALK - Inside Look at Career Journeys in Applied AI

The second WaiTALK Women in AI Canada (WAI) event, hosted by both the Edmonton and Calgary chapters and powered by Amii, examines career highlights and challenges from a personal perspective of a career in research in AI. Danielle Gifford (Senior Manager at AltaML Applied AI Lab & Calgary City Lead of WAI) moderates this panel, featuring Ashley Casovan (AI Global), Jessica Kaczmer (Omnia), Jil MacDonald (AltaML) and Tania Hoque (WestJet).

Get your ticket

See a full list of Amii and partner events on our Events page.

Career Opportunities

• If you are a grad student with a passion for teaching and mentorship, apply to be one of our AI4Good Lab TAs! We are looking for 12 TAs to provide assistance to AI4Good Lab participants.

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