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.