The USF Institute for AI+X hosted its second AI+X Symposium at the Tampa Campus on Friday, October 25th, with opening remarks from Provost Prasant Mohapatra. Despite increasing the capacity from last time, tickets sold out before the meeting. Over 130 corporate representatives, faculty, graduate students, and researchers from across the nation traveled to Tampa to engage in the dialogue about the future of AI and foster synergy for innovative new projects and research through a series of panel and poster discussions.
鈥淭his event has quickly become an essential platform for sharing, connecting, and sparking innovation across disciplines,鈥� said Distinguished University Professor Sudeep Sarkar, Co-Director of USF Institute for AI+X and Chair of Computer Science and Engineering. The energy among attendees was palpable as the topics and possibilities discussed had a range of implications for the nation and world. 鈥淲e had posters and talks from Moffitt, USF Health, Education, and more,鈥� said Professor John Licato.
The symposium featured 74 papers in total, some as panels with Q&A sessions, others as research poster presentations and networking sessions between industry experts and researchers, aimed at garnering new insights and cross-disciplinary endeavors to utilize the latest advances in Artificial Intelligence.
The research presented was selected after a peer review process managed by Professors John Licato, Ankur Mali, Larry Hall, Triparna de Vreede, and Sudeep Sarkar. Researchers across a variety of disciplines submitted over 90 abstracts. A program committee of 35 USF AI researchers reviewed the abstracts, each receiving at least two reviews. Ellyn Couillard collaborated with the faculty to plan and manage the symposium.
Nitesh Chawla, Frank M. Freimann Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, also an alumnus of USF, delivered an engaging keynote talk on 鈥淭raversing the AI + X Continuum for Impact.鈥�
The topics ranged from deep learning pipelines for medical diagnosis of bone marrow, wildlife monitoring, and conservation efforts, linguistic parsing techniques, human gait dynamics, ethical issues including fairness and trustworthiness, robotics applications, cybersecurity, prompt engineering, satellite imagery, and far more. 鈥淚 saw and participated in a number of stimulating research discussions. It was a great day to learn about exciting AI research at USF and in the Tampa Bay region,鈥� said Distinguished University Professor Lawrence Hall.
In summary, the discussions were a snapshot of the current technological zeitgeist concerning AI, converging on the medical, cybersecurity, and linguistic applications, with a smattering of robotics and educational applications. 鈥淲ith the launch of the new College of AI, Cybersecurity, and Computing, we are committed to expanding the symposium even further next year, amplifying its impact on the future of AI and interdisciplinary research,鈥� said Professor Sarkar.