Keynote Speakers

PROFESSOR KALYANMOY DEB

Koenig Endowed Chair Professor,
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Director, Computational Optimization and Innovation (COIN) Laboratory, Michigan State University, USA

Speech Title: Interpretable Artificial Intelligence Policies Using Nonlinear Decision Trees

Biography: Prof. Kalyanmoy Deb received his PhD degree in Engineering Mechanics, from University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA, May 1991 titled ‘Boolean and floating-point function optimization using messy genetic algorithms’ M.S in Engineering Mechanics, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA May 1989 ‘Multi-modal function optimization using genetic algorithms’.
Since 2013, Deb has held the Herman E. & Ruth J. Koenig Endowed Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computing Engineering at Michigan State University, which was established in 2001. Deb is a Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Department of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan State University. Deb established the Kanpur Genetic Algorithms Laboratory at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1997 and the Computational Optimization and Innovation (COIN) Laboratory at Michigan State University in 2013. Deb is a highly cited researcher with 150038 + Google Scholar citations and has a H-index of 123. According to the Web of Science Core Collection database, his IEEE TEC paper on NSGA-II is the first paper by authors who are all Indian to have more than 5,000 citations. Recently, he proposed an extended EMO method—NSGA-III for solving many-objective optimization problems involving 10+ objectives. Prof. Deb is 8th Most-Cited Researcher in “Machine Learning” according to Google Scholar.

PROFESSOR AJITH ABRAHAM

Director – Machine Intelligence Research Labs (MIR Labs), Auburn, Washington, USA

Speech Title: Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0: Challenges from a Data Analysis Perspective

Biography: Prof.Abraham is the Director of Machine Intelligence Research Labs (MIR Labs), a Not-for-Profit Scientific Network for Innovation and Research Excellence connecting Industry and Academia. The Network with HQ in Seattle, USA has currently more than 1,000 scientific members from over 100 countries. As an Investigator / Co-Investigator, he has won research grants worth over 100+ Million US$ from Australia, USA, EU, Italy, Czech Republic,France, Malaysia and China. Dr. Abraham works in a multi-disciplinary environment involving machine intelligence, cyber-physical systems, Internet of things, network security, sensor networks, Web intelligence, Web services, data mining and applied to various real-world problems. In these areas, he has authored/co-authored more than 1,300+ research publications out of which there are 100+ books covering various aspects of Computer Science. One of his books was translated to Japanese and few other articles were translated to Russian and Chinese. About 1200+ publications are indexed by Scopus and over 900 are indexed by Thomson ISI Web of Science. Some of the articles are available in the ScienceDirect Top 25 hottest articles. He has 700+ co-authors originating from 40+ countries. Dr.Abraham has more than 40,000+ academic citations (h-index of 95 as per google scholar). He has given more than 100 plenary lectures and conference tutorials (in 20+ countries). For his research, he has won seven best paper awards at prestigious International conferences held in Belgium, Canada Bahrain, Czech Republic, China and India. Since 2008, Dr. Abraham is the Chair of IEEE Systems Man and Cybernetics Society Technical Committee on Soft Computing (which has over 200+ members) and served as a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Computer Society representing Europe (2011-2013).
Currently, he is the editor-in-chief of Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (EAAI) and serves/served the editorial board of over 15 International Journals indexed by Thomson ISI. He is actively involved in the organization of several academic conferences, and some of them are now annual events. Dr.Abraham received PhD degree in Computer Science from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia (2001) and a Master of Science Degree from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (1998). More information at http://www.softcomputing.net/

PROFESSOR JOHN MACINTYRE

Speech Title: WHY BIG TECH MUST NOT BECOME THE BIG TOBACCO OF A.I. 

Biography: Prof. John is the Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Sunderland. He has worked at the University of Sunderland since 1992, having graduated from the University with a First Class Honours Degree in Combined Science (Computer Science and Physiology). He then went on to complete a PhD in applied artificial intelligence, focussing on the use of neural networks in predictive maintenance, which was awarded in 1996. During the 1990s John established a research centre – the Centre for Adaptive Systems – at the University, which became recognised by the UK government as a Centre of Excellence for applied research in adaptive computing and artificial intelligence. The Centre undertook many projects working with and for external organisations in industry, science and academia, and for three years ran the Smart Software for Decision Makers programme on behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry. He has successfully supervised PhDs in fields ranging from neural networks, hybrid systems, and bioinformatics through to lean manufacturing, predictive maintenance, and business and maintenance strategies. He went on to become Associate Dean, and then Dean, of the School of Computing, Engineering and Technology, covering Computer Science and Engineering; in 2008 he became the Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science, and in 2010 Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University.

PROFESSOR ANSGAR KOENE

Global AI Ethics and Regulatory Leader at EY; Director, AI Ethics Board, Hayden AI, United Kingdom

Speech Title: AI Ethics Standards and Regulation for a Trustworthy AI ecosystem

Biography: Dr.Ansgar Koene is Global AI Ethics and  Regulatory Leader at EY(Ernst & Young) where he contributes to the work on AI governance, trusted AI frameworks and AI-related public policy engagement. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute (University of Nottingham) where he contributes to the policy impact and public engagement activities of the institute and the ReEnTrust and UnBias projects. Ansgar chairs the IEEE P7003 Standard for Algorithmic Bias Considerations working group, and participates in the IEEE standards, certification (ECPAIS) and the European Public Policy Committee for ICT. Other standards development work includes participation in the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC42 AI and the CEN-CENELEC Focus Group for AI. He is a trustee for the 5Rgiths foundation for the Rights of Young People Online and is part of the 5Rights Digital Futures Committee. Ansgar has a multi-disciplinary research background, having worked and published on topics ranging from Policy and Governance of Algorithmic Systems (AI), data privacy, AI Ethics, AI Standards, bio-inspired Robotics, AI and Computational Neuroscience to experimental Human Behaviour/Perception studies. He holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering and a PhD in Computational Neuroscience.