https://blackinai-workshop2021.eventbrite.com.br/

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Last updated on Oct 31, 2021

Call For Papers Submissions

We invite submissions for the Fifth Black in AI Workshop (Virtual) co-located with NeurIPS 2021. Both the Black in AI workshop and the NeurIPS conference will be held in a virtual (online) format.

We welcome research papers, position papers, survey papers, vision papers, or papers that inform about neglected/abandoned areas of study where AI could be impactful. Papers may introduce new theory, methodology, applications or product demonstrations. Papers are published in a non-archival format and may have been published in other venues before or be published in other venues in the future.

Submissions may include, but are not limited to, the following topics: Artificial Intelligence, Computational Neuroscience, Deep Learning, Knowledge Reasoning, Machine Learning, Multi-agent Systems, Statistical Reasoning, Computational Theory, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, Data Mining, and Robotics. We also welcome papers about applications of AI to Health, Education, Fairness, Ethics and, Transparency in AI, AI & Arts, AI & Politics, etc.

Each submission will fall into one of these 4 tracks:

• Machine learning Algorithms
• Systems and Applications
• Position papers
• Product demonstrations

Work may be previously published, completed, or ongoing. The workshop will not publish proceedings. We encourage all Black researchers in areas related to AI to submit their work. The work should include at least one Black researcher, either as a main author or as a co-author.

Last updated on Nov 16, 2021

Submission Format and Guidelines

All submissions must be in PDF format. Submissions are limited to two content pages, including all figures and tables. An additional page containing only references is allowed.​ Submissions should be in a​ single column ​, typeset using ​11-point or larger fonts and have at least ​1-inch margin all around. Submissions that do not follow these guidelines risk being rejected without consideration of their merits.

Registration

Registration starts on September 24, 2021. We strongly encourage workshop attendees to register for the workshops as early as possible. The registration can be found here.

NeurIPS provides financial support to our community. Students with accepted papers are particularly encouraged to apply. The applications will close on November 26, 2021. If you are interested, please fill this form:

Financial Assistance Application: neurips.cc/Surveys/61](https://neurips.cc/Surveys/61)

Important Dates

• Call for Paper Submission Opens on CMT:
  • September 24, 2021
• Call for Paper Submission Deadline:
  • October 22, 2021 - 11:59 PM UTC
  • Submission Deadline EXTENDED to October 29 November 1st, 2021 - 11:59 PM UTC
• Notification of Call for paper acceptance:
  • November 22, 2021
• Poster Submission Deadline for Accepted papers:
  • November 29, 2021

Submissions

Submit your work at BLACKINAI2021

Microsoft Conference Management Toolkit (CMT): HOW-TO: Author Submission

For any questions, please contact the organisers at blackinai2021@googlegroups.com

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Keynote Speakers

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Louvere Walker-Hannon

MathWorks Application Engineering Team Lead

Louvere Walker-Hannon is a MathWorks Application Engineering Team Lead, who provides technical guidance on the implementation of AI and Data Science workflows for various applications. She also leads a team of other Application Engineers. She has a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering and a master’s degree in Geographic Information Technology with a specialization in Remote Sensing. Louvere has worked in three different engineering roles throughout her 20 plus year career while at MathWorks. Louvere has presented and continues to present at several STEM related conferences on various topics and is an active STEM advocate.

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She has presented her work on Natural Language Processing and presented AI workshops at various conferences. Louvere has presented her AI work at the following conferences: Grace Hopper Celebration, the Women in Data Science (WiDS), the Open Data Science East Conference (ODSC East), and others. Louvere is one of the Meetups Chairs for NeurIPS 2021. Louvere has a long history of serving as a STEM advocate and mentor especially related to underrepresented groups in technology. Louvere frequently and currently volunteers with Black Girls Code, the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) African American and Latinos Affinity Groups, and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). She is also a recent recipient of the SWE WE Local 2022 Engaged Advocate Award which honors individuals who contributed to the advancement or acceptance of women in engineering. Louvere is honored to speak as a part of the Black in AI workshop for NeurIPS 2021.

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What does “AI for social good” mean to the African diaspora? - Louvere Walker-Hannon

Abstract: We are aware that AI can be used for a variety of applications. The phrase AI for social good has become more prominent over the past few years. But what is meant by AI for social good? AI for social good is a newer research field that has an emphasis on using AI to address social, environmental, and health challenges. This research is multiple disciplinary which can help provide a variety of techniques and perspectives to address these challenges. On the surface, this sounds promising. However, will some communities more than others have the opportunity to benefit from this research, and in what ways? For instance, can AI for social good decrease trolls in social media spaces of members of the African diaspora or determine trends or patterns regarding Black maternal mortality? The focus of this talk will explore and try to determine what does AI for social good means specifically to members of the African diaspora.

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Paul Azunre

Director of Data Science, Dun & Bradstreet. Founder and Director of Research, NLP Ghana. Founder and Chief Architect, Algorine. Author, "Transfer Learning for Natural Language Processing" (Manning Publications)

Paul Azunre holds a PhD in Computer Science from MIT and has served as a Principal Investigator on several DARPA research programs. He founded Algorine Inc., a Research Lab dedicated to advancing AI/ML and identifying scenarios where they can have a significant social impact.

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Paul also co-founded Ghana NLP, an open source initiative focused on using NLP and Transfer Learning with Ghanaian and other low-resource languages. He also serves as Director of Research at Dun & Bradstreet, a company helping businesses manage supply chain risk and other business analytics challenges. He is the author of the recently published book "Transfer Learning for NLP" by Manning Publications.

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NLPGhana: A Case Study on Building A Self-Sustaining Machine Learning Research Ecosystem in Africa - Paul Azunre

Abstract: Machine learning techniques for analyzing human language have traditionally focused on English, other European languages, and widely-spoken Asian languages. While African languages have been getting more attention recently, the same forces that led to them being ignored in the first place are being replicated internally within Africa. Landmark studies in African Natural Language Processing (NLP) focus on widely spoken languages like Swahili, Yoruba, Amharic, Zulu, etc. Languages with fewer speakers, such as all Ghanaian languages, are relegated to the "Future Work" section and are rarely prioritized by researchers, research funding agencies, or the press. I will discuss NLPGhana, an initiative I co-founded to ensure that Ghanaian languages are prioritized in African NLP research. I will discuss some of our technical achievements - such as Khaya, the world's first and only Ghanaian language neural machine translation app already being used widely by the Ghanaian public. I will discuss challenges faced in trying to make this research ecosystem self-sustaining, given the aforementioned lack of support for languages with fewer speakers.

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https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfMBk14PIvBgF3ljWV6nDrKAGVJhhlnFnHJocb8ngR2ghqzPA/viewform

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Last updated on Apr 16, 2021

Call For Startups

This year's workshop will also include a startup showcase. If you identify as black and are the founder of an AI company, apply here, if you are interested in helping with reviewing startups! Apply here

As you know, Black in AI started with academic roots and has historically focused on breaking down the barriers for black researchers to fully participate in the development of artificial intelligence. Through our yearly workshop we gather the brightest black minds in the field to showcase their work. As part of this mission, we have also grown a community of 4000 members across 50 countries, built a social media presence to highlight year round the amazing work coming out of this community and established an award-winning academic program to help members of the community apply to graduate school, postdocs and faculty positions. We intend to grow in this area and stay close to our academic roots.

Through working closely with members of the community and learning from their aspirations, we became aware of another area where we could play a bigger role: entrepreneurship. Many members here have started, are starting or will start technology companies based on recent advances in AI. The founder's journey comprises many highs and lows and we want to be here to support our entrepreneurs throughout their journey. As a step marking our desire to intentionally support these aspirations, we are excited to announce this year's workshop will include a startup showcase.

We expect to showcase a dozen startups from the community through a 1h digital event and have 30 min of networking activities. If you identify as black and are the founder of an AI company, apply here by October 31st 2021 for an opportunity to showcase your startup.

If you are an ally and/or want to help with reviewing startups, apply here by October 31st 2021.

Feel free to direct questions to: entrepreneurship@blackinai.org

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Startup Showcase - Accepted Companies

Retina AI

Founder: Stephen Odaibo

Our products diagnose disease from pictures of the retina

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Lisnen

Founder: Eyra Abraham

Lisnen is a situational awareness app designed to assist hearing loss individuals with sensing essential sounds around them.

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BlackUp

Founder: Christabel Agbonkonkon

We make it easy for companies to find and hire Black talents, onboard and manage their experiences.

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Salynt

Founder: Jeremy Lawson

No-code data science platform.

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SuaCode.ai

Founder: George Boateng

We enable young Africans to learn code using smartphones and AI.

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Ubenwa

Founder: Charles Onu

Cry-based pathology detection in infants using AI.

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Medium Biosciences

Founder: Hassan Kane, Adil Yusuf

ML to rapidly find novel, high performing enzymes.

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Haiphen

Founder: Jude Safo

API management tools to make secure, traceable software practically accessible to everyone.

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Hansu

Founder: Nazirini Siraji

Actionable intelligence for smallholder farmers in Uganda.

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Lesan AI

Founder: Asmelash Teka

Machine translation systems centered on African languages, starting with Ethiopia (Tigrinya & Amharic).

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Review Committee

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Watch the Startup Showcase at NeurIPS 2021

https://slideslive.com/embed/presentation/38973431

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Irene Nandutu

PhD Student at Rhodes University

Irene Nandutu is currently pursuing a PhD in Applied Maths at Rhodes University attached to Rhodes Artificial Intelligence Research Group where she is doing her research in Conservation AI. She has a broad interest in the field of computer vision, NLP, and AI Fairness in relation to solving real-world problems.

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Hameed Abdul

PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Hameed is PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is broadly interested in the practical intersection of Representation Learning, Computer Vision, and Reinforcement Learning for Robotic Applications.

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Mírian Silva

Master's Student @UFMG | AI Engineer at IBM Research

Mirian (She/Her) is an AI Research Engineer at IBM Research. She is a producer and instructor at Coursera, where she teaches Guided Projects. Currently MSc student in Computer Science at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. She holds a BSc. in Computational Mathematics from the same university. Her research interests include broadly AI/ML, with a special focus on Privacy and Trustworthy AI.

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Salomey Osei

Research Assistant, University of Deusto

Salomey is a research assistant at DeustoTech, University of Deusto. She is also a researcher at Masakhane and the research lead of unsupervised methods for Ghana NLP. She has been involved with a number of organizations such as Black in AI, Women in Machine Learning (WiML) and Women in Machine Learning and Data Science (WiMLDS) as a co-organiser. She is also passionate about mentoring students, especially females in STEM and her long term goal is to share her knowledge with others by lecturing.

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Foutse Yuehgoh

P.h.D Student at CNAM/ESILV & Coexel

Foutse holds a BSc. degree in Mathematics and Computer Science (minor) from the University of Buea, Cameroon, and two Master's degrees - one in Big Data and Computer security, and the other in Information and Data processing from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), Senegal and the University of Paris Saclay, France respectively. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science, working on the intersection of graphs and Natural Language Processing for recommender systems.

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https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf27P8dpOY63_G86tVFWven4m4lJsPS_oV1lHIq_paEeXibQw/viewform

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