The Qatar Center for Artificial Intelligence (QCAI), part of the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), will host the seventh annual Machine Learning and Data Analytics Symposium (MLDAS) in collaboration with The Boeing Company. To ensure the safety of all participants, this year’s symposium will be held virtually from March 23 to 25. 

The event brings together researchers, practitioners, students, and industry experts in artificial intelligence and data science to bridge the gap between theory and practice and address challenges facing the industry. This year’s event will focus on robust machine learning and practical artificial intelligence applications. The program will feature presentations by speakers from both industry and academia, including MIT-CSAIL Director, Dr. Daniela Rus; ETH Zurich’s Professor Andreas Krause; and Vice President of Sustainability and Impact Initiatives at Planet Labs, Dr. Andrew Zolli.

Dr. Ahmed Elmagarmid, executive director at QCRI, said: “Each year, MLDAS provides an opportunity for experts in AI and Data Science to pause and reflect on recent advances and open research questions and help us separate the hype from the substance. A platform for knowledge-sharing and discussion, the focus of the symposium has always been to help tackle concrete challenges and problems. We encourage students and researchers in the scientific community as well as practitioners with an interest in these fields to join us virtually for MLDAS 2021 and to contribute their expertise to the program.”

Bernard Dunn, president of Boeing Middle East, Turkey, and Africa, said: “Machine learning and data analytics are critical for every industry, and every year through symposiums like MLDAS, we find better ways to manage and analyze the data needed to make sound decisions. Our partnership with QCRI has allowed talent from around the world to gather and share their innovations, expose regional students to experts in the field, and advance Qatar’s research and development objectives.” 

The symposium will include a series of presentations and panel discussions involving distinguished researchers from industry and academia. Topics to be discussed include:

• Computer vision and perception.
• Modeling uncertainty for increased robustness.
• Human-computer decision systems research.
• Reinforcement learning.
• Artificial Intelligence for space applications.

Other notable participants include Professor Tina Eliassi-Rad, Northeastern University; Professor Ian Davidson, University of California, Davis; Professor David Forsyth, University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign; Professor Alexander Rudnicky, Carnegie Mellon University; Dr. Adil Salim, KAUST; Professor Julie Shah, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Professor Johans Suykens, KU Leuven – Belgium; and Professor Claire Tomlin, University of California, Berkeley. Prominent QCRI speakers include Dr. Halima Bensmail, Principal Scientist; Dr. Mohammad Amin Sadeghi, Scientist; and Dr. Hassan Sajjad, Scientist.

For more information about MLDAS 2021 and the registration process, please visit:  https://www.hbku.edu.qa/en/academic-events/machine-learning-data