Keynote Speakers

Tuesday, July 13, 2020

Talk: “The Eyes are the Windows to the Mind: Implications for AI-driven personalized interaction”.

Dr. Conati is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She received a M.Sc. in Computer Science at the University of Milan, as well as a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Intelligent Systems at the University of Pittsburgh. Conati’s research is at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Cognitive Science, with the goal to create intelligent interactive systems that can capture relevant user’s properties (states, skills, needs) and personalize the interaction accordingly. Conati has over 100 peer-reviewed publications in this field and her research has received awards from a variety of venues, including UMUAI, the Journal of User Modeling and User Adapted Interaction (2002), the ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2007), the International Conference of User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP 2013, 2014), TiiS, ACM Transactions on Intelligent Interactive Systems (2014), and the International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA 2016). Dr. Conati is an associate editor for UMUAI, ACM TiiS, IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, and the Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education. She served as President of AAAC, (Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing), as well as Program or Conference Chair for several international conferences including UMAP, ACM IUI, and AI in Education. She serves on the Executive Committees of AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence) and of CAIDA (the UBC Center for Artificial Intelligence, Decision AMking and Action)

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Talk: “Physical and Social Human-robot Interaction”.

Giorgio Metta is the Scientific Director of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT). He holds a MSc cum laude (1994) and PhD (2000) in electronic engineering both from the University of Genoa. From 2001 to 2002, Giorgio was postdoctoral associate at the MIT AI-Lab. He was previously with the University of Genoa and from 2012 to 2019 Professor of Cognitive Robotics at the University of Plymouth (UK). He was member of the board of directors of euRobotics aisbl, the European reference organization for robotics research. Giorgio Metta served as Vice Scientific Director of IIT from 2016 to 2019. He coordinated IIT’s participation into two of the Ministry of Economic Development Competence Centers for Industry 4.0 (ARTES4.0, START4.0). He was one of the three Italian representatives at the 2018 G7 forum on Artificial Intelligence and, more recently, one of the authors of the Italian Strategic Agenda on AI. Giorgio coordinaed the development of the iCub robot for more than a decade making it de facto the reference platform for research in embodied AI. Currently, there are more than 40 robots reaching laboratories as far as Japan, China, Singapore, Germany, Spain, UK and the United States. Giorgio Metta research activities are in the fields of biologically motivated and humanoid robotics and, in particular, in developing humanoid robots that can adapt and learn from experience. Giorgio Metta is author of more than 300 scientific publications. He has been working as principal investigator and research scientist in about a dozen international research as well as industrial projects.

Thursday, July 17, 2020

Talk: “Does My AI Help or Hurt? Exploring Human+AI Complementarity”.

Dr. Kori Inkpen is a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research AI. Kori’s current work is focused on Human+AI Collaboration to improve human decision making, particularly in high-stakes contexts. A key component of this research is understanding Bias and Fairness in Human+AI systems, and exploring ways to mitigate these biases. This is an area that she cares deeply about, and ethical issues in AI are a priority for Microsoft. Previously, her work focused on the potential of video to transform the way we interact with friends, families, colleagues, and strangers. Over the years her work has made significant contributions in the areas of Computer-Supports Collaboration Work and Human-Computer Interaction, exploring next generation video conferencing systems to connect people in new ways. Prior to joining Microsoft she was a professor of Computer Science at Dalhousie University (2001-2007) and Simon Fraser University (1998-2001).