Affinity Event
Bridging the Future
East Meeting Room 16
Sanmi Koyejo · Ching Lam Choi · Judy Hanwen Shen · Michelle L Brown · Andrea Delgado-Olson · Susanna Raj · Sudha Jamthe · Bello Tukur
The Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation solicited proposals in 2023 to support broadening participation activities in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Activities were geared toward any age group or educational level, from grade school to senior faculty. Of particular interest are workshops, programs, and web-based materials aimed at improving the training of young researchers. Activities with the potential for broadening representation and inclusion in the field, high impact, and reach are prioritized, as will activities that can demonstrate alignment with the goals of the Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation. Funding amounts may vary depending on goals and potential impact, with a target maximum of $$50,000.
When is Bridging the Future?
Three applications were granted: Indigenous AI, WiML, and Global South AI. They will be presenting their work on Thursday, December 12 at 7:30 pm in room East MR 16. Join us to learn about their ongoing project to better support their communities and the world.
Light snacks and drinks will be served.
We will list the speakers and titles and start time for each group when we have more information.
Enabling the professional development of women in machine learning through mentorship
Ching Lam Choi · Judy Hanwen Shen
Judy Shen will present on how NeurIPS funding directly supported WiML’s 2023–2024 Mentorship Program participants by offsetting higher-degree (Master’s / Ph.D) application costs for WiML members, which can be prohibitively expensive, particularly for those from regions with economic disparities looking to apply to programs abroad. In addition to funding higher-degree applicants, the annual WiML Mentorship Program pairs participants with mentors in one-on-one settings tailored to individual career goals, focusing on critical transition points such as post-graduate applications and job-seeking post-degree. Participants benefit from structured programming including specialized panel discussions on application processes from academic and industry leaders. Ching Lam Choi, a mentee who took part the 2023–2024 Mentorship Program, will present her experience during the program and her successes since then.
Building inclusive futures now: IndigiGenius' Indigenous CS and AI initiatives
Michelle L Brown · Andrea Delgado-Olson
Andrea Delgado-Olson and Michelle Lee Brown will present on IndigiGenius: an Indigenous-focused tech nonprofit shaping inclusive tech futures today for Indigenous youth and educators across the US and Canada. They will highlight one program, the Lakota AI Code Camp (LAICC) which was supported by NeurIPS in 2024. The Lakota AI Code Camp is a three-week summer camp for Lakota high school youth to learn about artificial intelligence. This program offers a culturally relevant curriculum created by an all-Indigenous team of AI/computing professionals and educators, half of whom are Lakota. All materials, equipment, food, and lodging are provided at no cost to the students, weekly stipends and travel assistance are also provided. Andrea and Michelle will then illustrate how LAICC connects with IndigiGenius' other three programs: Teach the Teacher Professional Development (T3PD), Indigenous in AI/ML, and First Languages AI Reality (FLAIR), and how all four of these programs support each other now and into the future.
Empowering global south communities for inclusion of low resource languages with machine translation
Susanna Raj · Sudha Jamthe · Bello Tukur
Susanna Raj & Sudha Jamthe will share the learning from Global South in AI’s pilot program to empower global south communities to upskill AI research with training, datasets and multi- lingual machine translation models. Come find out the challenges of Upskilling new learners in a global south country in a culture preserving way and the takeaways in model building for multiple African languages in an ever expanding world of LLMs.
This talk is for anyone who wants to join us in the audacious goal of building a generic machine translation model and building curriculum to upskill AI capacity for low resource learners in the global south languages.