IDEAI-UPC will address the main challenges of Artificial Intelligence at the AI & Big Data Congress

23/7/21

The Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Research Center (IDEAI) of UPC will take part, on 14 and 15 September in Barcelona, in the seventh edition of the AI & Big Data Congress. The Congress will address trends in artificial intelligence and best practices of companies that are pioneers in the sector, as well as the latest technological innovations and their application.

The AI & Big Data Congress, the leading world conference for professionals, researchers, suppliers and companies in this area, in which the Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Research Center (IDEAI) of the Universitat Politècnica der Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC) and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) will participate, among other research centres, will take place this year on 14 September onsite at the AXA Auditorium Barcelona and will be streamed live on YouTube. On 15 September, the sessions will be held online only. Registrations for the AI & Big Data Congress 2021 are open here.

With a total of over 50 talks, the congress will bring together leading experts and initiatives in the field of artificial intelligence and data analysis, to “put on the table the potential and the challenges of its adoption at business level, the attraction and retention of talent, the ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI), as well as representative use cases in diverse sectors such as health and wellbeing, Industry 4.0, mobility, energy and sustainability, among others”, said congress director, Joan Mas, director of the Centre of Innovation for Data Tech and Artificial Intelligence (CIDAI), the entity that organises the event, and of the Digital Area of Eurecat technology centre.

The welcome address of the AI & Big Data Congress will be given by the Vice-President of Product, International Markets and Globalization at Procore Technologies at Procore, Anna N. Schlegel, recognised as the most influential woman in the technology world by the Analytics Insight magazine. In her speech, she will discuss the latest international trends emerging in AI.

Cristian Canton, leader of the AI Red Team of Facebook, specialised in discovering, understanding and mitigating potential threats derived from the application of AI by the company, will address abuses and improper uses of this technology to tackle them preventatively. The congress will also include talks by CIDAI experts and IDEAI researchers of the UPC, as well as leading organisations and companies.

As part of Catalonia’s AI strategy of the Government of Catalonia and coordinated by Eurecat, CIDAI is a public-private initiative backed by the Government of Catalonia through the Department of the Vice-Presidency, Digital Policies and Territory, Barcelona City Council, IDEAI-UPC, Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CSN), Computer Vision Centre, Everis, an NTT DATA Company, the i2CAT Foundation, Microsoft and the SDG Group.

CIDAI promotes the generation, validation and transfer of reliable artificial intelligence technologies with high added value to encourage adoption and technological innovation in strategic sectors of the country and their companies and institutions, and good practices in society in general.

Organised by CIDAI and coordinated by Eurecat, the AI & Big Data Congress is sponsored by the Government of Catalonia, Barcelona City Council, SDG Group, Microsoft, Everis, an NTT DATA Company, and CaixaBank. 

Talent attraction in IA, ethics and robotics

The participation of IDEAI in the congress will be in various subject areas in different sessions: on 14 September (in the AXA Auditorium), at 12:50 h, in a session on attracting and retaining talent, Mariona Ciller from SokoTech will present the programme Top Secret Rosies. This is an initiative under the scientific direction of Karina Gibert, director of IDEAI, to promote the creation of women’s talent in AI.

At 13:35 h, Karina Gibert will chair a session on Ethical AI for good, with two speakers: Michael Donaldson from Barcelona City Council, and Albert Sabaté director of the Catalan Observatory for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence. At 15:41 h, Marta Ruiz Costa-Jussà will present a proof of concept for automatic translation.

On 15 September, at 12:15 h and in online format, Cecilio Angulo will participate in the session on robotics and cognitive computing.