Student Participant Support for Conversational Intelligence Summer School 2019

University Of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell MA

Investigators

Abstract

From commercial personal assistants and customer service chatbots to intelligent tutors and voice control interfaces, dialogue systems and conversational agents are presently in high demand in a variety of industries and are becoming ubiquitous in our everyday lives. While recent advances in artificial intelligence have placed some of these practical applications within reach, some tough challenges need be addressed before such systems are able to support human-level conversation. The Conversational Intelligence Summer School (CISS) aims to train young researchers interested in this challenging and exciting field in state-of-the-art techniques and provide them with hands-on skills to develop such applications. This one-week intensive program offers participants the opportunity to build a solid understanding of core conversational AI concepts and techniques, with the goal to train a core of talented practitioners to take on unsolved problems in this domain. This proposal requests funding to subsidize student participation in the 2nd International Summer School for Conversational Intelligence (CISS 2019), to be held at the University of Massachusetts Lowell from June 24 to 29, 2019. Participants will receive hands-on training in contemporary deep learning techniques for developing chit-chat conversational agents, providing (a) exposure to current research trends in AI for conversational agents, which they will be able to use in their own research and (b) practical skills in demand in the industry which they will be able to carry on to the workforce. The program includes a combination of lecture instruction, programming tutorials, invited lectures by top researchers, and supervised project work. Participating students will benefit from the opportunity for interaction with their peers at other domestic and international institutions, as well as instructors and senior organizers. Networking hours following guest lectures allow the students to have close interactions with prominent researchers invited to give guest lectures. The program brings together students and researchers from different countries, exposing participants to a wider range of educational and research perspectives and creating ties that can help to foster future international collaborations. The opportunities provided by this program encourage student participants to continue in their efforts to develop technical expertise and further their interest in careers at the forefront of AI research. Project code, teaching materials, and invited lectures will be made accessible publicly whenever possible in order to increase the impact of this program outside of the audience of immediate participants. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.