Keynotes

Machine Learning for Social Good: Joining Female Intelligence to Artificial Intelligence

Mihaela van der Schaar

Bio: Professor van der Schaar is John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Medicine at the University of Cambridge and a Turing Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute in London, where she leads the effort on data science and machine learning for personalised medicine. She is an IEEE Fellow. She has received the Oon Prize on Preventative Medicine from the University of Cambridge (2018). She has also been the recipient of an NSF Career Award, 3 IBM Faculty Awards, the IBM Exploratory Stream Analytics Innovation Award, the Philips Make a Difference Award and several best paper awards, including the IEEE Darlington Award. She holds 35 granted USA patents.

Triple A - Affirmative Action for Algorithms: A concrete call for action

Caitlin Kraft-Buchman

Abstract: Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian media theorist, famously stated that “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us”. If algorithms are fed with sexist data from skewed databases, the writers of algorithms are not taking bias into consideration, AND the algorithms are impossible to audit, what can we do to ensure we do not bake in bias so deeply we will be unable to remove it from machine learning systems.

This keynote will propose Triple A: Affirmative Action for Algorithms, a concrete call to action to correct the real life bias and barriers that prevent women from achieving full participation and rights. We will examine actions ranging from universities to government to private sector initiatives, pledges, actions, and the opportunity to catalyze a movement.

Bio: Caitlin Kraft-Buchman founded and is CEO of Women@TheTable a Swiss NGO that advocates for women and men to have equal influence and power in all facets of public and private life. Women@theTable connects frontline feminists to international decision-makers so that women leaders participate in and influence global debates and decisions on technology, the economy, governance, and sustainability. She recently curated a global Geneva convening on Gender & Cities, bringing the findings to the Commission on the Status of Women in New York, and recently to ITU’s World Summit on the Information Society, and then to the 13th Symposium on ICT, Environment and Climate Change where she began a call for Affirmative Action for Algorithms.

A coalition builder, Caitlin is one of three co-founders, with the Director-General of the UN in Geneva, and former US Ambassador to UN in Geneva, of International Gender Champions (IGC) a leadership network of female & male decision-makers that break down gender barriers for system change. IGC formed in 2015 now includes hubs in Geneva, New York, Vienna, Nairobi, and The Hague, and counts 200+ Champion heads of organizations including the Secretary General of the UN, heads of the WTO, ILO, WHO, ITU, WIPO, Ambassadors, Civil Society, and its first Finance Minister pledging to create an IGC-Finance Hub focused on gender budgeting.

The Glass Ceiling in the Natural Language Processing Community

Natalie Schluter

Abstract: In this talk I provide empirical evidence based on a rigorously studied mathematical model for bi-populated networks, that a glass ceiling with the field of Natural Language Processing has developed since the mid 2000s.

Bio: Natalie is Associate Professor in Natural Language Processing and Data Science at the IT University (ITU), in Copenhagen, Denmark. At ITU she co-developed and now leads the first Data Science programme in Denmark, a B.Sc. Before coming to ITU, she held positions as Chief Analyst at MobilePay, Danske Bank, and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Copenhagen and Malmö University. Natalie holds a PhD in Natural Language Processing from Dublin City University's School of Computing. She holds a further four degrees: an MSc in Mathematics from Trinity College, Dublin, a BSc in Mathematics and MA in Linguistics from the University of Montreal, and a BA in French and Spanish. Natalie is a Canadian, living in Copenhagen for the past 10 years with her husband and two daughters.

Invited Talk

Data Ethics Kaleidoscope

Christin Schaefer

Abstract: We will together have a look through an kaleidoscope on the multi-faceted term "data ethics". Short vignettes on aspects like: Why is it on the table right now? Approaches. Concepts. Legal view. Public opinion and public focus. Pressure on politics. Practioners attempts. And the complexity that comes in, when you face the real world. Food for thought - and discussions.

Other Contributions

Madness Session

We will run a madness session to give attendees the opportunity to share their research with the rest of us. Participants can show 1 slide and have 90 seconds to spike interest in their work.

Poster Session

Particpants can bring a poster of their work. The audience will select one poster which will be given a 20min presentation slot on the second day.