KEYNOTE TALK SERIES
Evangelos Simoudis
(Founder and Managing Director Synapse Partners)
Bio: Prof Dr. Evangelos Simoudis is a recognized expert on artificial intelligence and new mobility. He has worked in Silicon Valley for over 30 years as a venture investor, senior advisor to global corporations and governments, entrepreneur, corporate executive, and technologist. He is the co-founder and managing partner of Synapse Partners, a firm that advises global corporations on AI and mobility and invests in private companies developing AI applications. Before Synapse Partners, Evangelos was a managing director at Trident Capital and Apax Partners.
Evangelos is the author of three books: “The Big Data Opportunity in Our Driverless Future,” “Transportation Transformation,” and “The Flagship Experience.”
Evangelos is a member of Caltech’s advisory board, the advisory board of Brandeis International School of Business, the advisory board of the US Department of Transportation’s Connected Cities for Smart Mobility Center, and the advisory board of Securing America’s Future Energy. He has served on several commissions and task forces focusing on artificial intelligence, autonomous mobility, and corporate innovation.
He earned a Ph.D. in computer science (AI/ML) from Brandeis University and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Caltech.
Title: How AI and Software-Defined Vehicles Will Transform the Automotive Customer Experience
Abstract: Megatrends such as climate change, urbanization, new work practices, and aging populations influence our decisions about transportation and logistics. The talk presents how Software-Defined Vehicles and AI enable automakers, transportation providers, and transportation planners to reimagine the mobility customer experience, and presents a framework for implementing it. Software-defined vehicles (SDVs) will shift the focus from the vehicle to the customer, transforming the entire experience. Combining AI with vehicles’ big data generation, configurability, and updatability provides automakers with continuous customer understanding and recurring customer- and vehicle-monetization opportunities. It impacts how automakers design, make, sell, and service vehicles; how transportation and logistics providers maximize their vehicles’ utilization and improve the return on their investment; and how customers (both consumers and businesses) interact with the vehicle, the automaker, and numerous service providers. To succeed in making this shift, organizations will need to undertake important transformations. The talk presents an analysis of the approaches already taken and outlines additional ones that will be necessary.
Heather Renze
(CTO, The Difference Consulting)
Bio: Heather Renze is the Chief Technology Officer at the Difference Consulting, specializing in government and military advisory for AI ethics and strategy. She collaborates closely with the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) to ensure AI initiatives align with ethical standards and strategic goals for public and defense sectors.
Title For Talk: AI and Responsible Innovation in Government
Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) transforms government services and introduces new ethical challenges. Public agencies face issues of data privacy, algorithmic bias, and transparency. This talk explores these critical concerns and the responsibilities of AI integration in government.
I will showcase effective methods for utilizing AI responsibly in public services, using practical examples. Additionally, I will describe governance models and best practices that ensure AI serves society while safeguarding individual rights. Participants will clearly understand how to ethically and responsibly apply AI in government settings.
M. Reza Alam
(Vice Chair, Equity & Inclusion, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley)
Bio : Bio: Dr. Reza Alam is the Vice Chair and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also holds the American Bureau of Shipping Chair in Ocean Engineering. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT (2008), where he also served as a postdoctoral associate and lecturer before joining the faculty of UC Berkeley in 2011. His research focuses on theoretical fluid dynamics, ocean renewable energy, ocean and coastal wave phenomena, nonlinear dynamical systems, and fluid flow control. Dr. Alam’s work has applications in ocean renewable energy, greener ships, deep-sea mining, and climate modeling.
Title For Talk: Self-Powered Sailboat Drones: A Distributed Swarm Architecture for Real-Time Ocean Monitoring
Abstract: The vast expanse of Earth’s oceans remains largely undersampled, with a critical lack of high-resolution, real-time data hindering our understanding of complex oceanic processes and their global impacts. In this talk, I will present an innovative approach to address this challenge through a swarm of self-powered autonomous sailboats forming an interconnected mesh network. The system enables real-time communication and coordinated data collection across oceanic regions, with each unit equipped to measure various ocean properties at high spatial and temporal resolutions. By combining artificial intelligence-driven control systems with robust inter-vessel communication protocols, the swarm provides unprecedented coverage and measurement accuracy compared to traditional methods. The computational framework integrates real-time measurements with advanced prediction algorithms, enabling accurate forecasting of ocean conditions with practical applications in maritime transportation and route optimization. Results demonstrate the system’s ability to maintain network connectivity while adapting to dynamic conditions, offering a scalable solution for comprehensive ocean monitoring that can enhance both scientific understanding and commercial maritime operations.
Oussama Khatib
(Professor, Stanford University)
Bio: Oussama Khatib received his PhD from Sup’Aero, Toulouse, France, in 1980. He is Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Robotics Laboratory at Stanford University. His research focuses on methodologies and technologies in human-centered robotics, haptic interactions, artificial intelligence, human motion synthesis and animation. He is President of the International Foundation of Robotics Research (IFRR) and an IEEE Fellow. He is Editor of the Springer STAR and SPAR series, and Springer Handbook of Robotics. He is recipient of the IEEE Robotics and Automation, Pioneering Award, the George Saridis Leadership Award, the Distinguished Service Award, the Japan Robot Association (JARA) Award, the Rudolf Kalman Award, and the IEEE Technical Field Award. Professor Khatib is Knight of the National Order of Merit and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Title Of Talk: Deep-Sea Robotics Exploration: OceanOneK
Abstract: OceanOneK is a robotic diver with a high degree of autonomy for physical interaction with the marine environment. The robot’s advanced autonomous capabilities for physical interaction in deep-sea are combined with the cognitive abilities of a human expert through an intuitive haptic/stereo-vision interface. OceanOneK was deployed in several archeological expeditions in the Mediterranean with the ability to reach 1000 meters and more recently the robot was tested in challenging tasks at Deep Dive Dubai. Distancing humans physically from dangerous and unreachable spaces while connecting their skills, intuition, and experience to the task
promises to fundamentally alter remote work. These developments show how human-robot collaboration-induced synergy can expand our abilities to reach new resources, build and maintain infrastructure, and perform disaster prevention and recovery operations – be it deep in oceans and mines, at mountain tops, or in space.
Chunyi Peng
(Professor, Purdue University)
Bio: Chunyi Peng is an Associate Professor in Department of Computer Science at Purdue University. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering at the Ohio State University after she received herPh.D. in Computer Science at University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to UCLA, she worked as an Associate/Assistant Researcher at Wireless Networking Group at Microsoft Research Asia. She received a M.Eng and B.Eng in Automation from Tsinghua University, both with highest honors.
Title Of Talk: From 3G/4G to 5G/xG: An Untold Story on Cellular Network Evolution
Abstract: Cellular technology is constantly evolving. Today, the fifth generation (5G) offers much faster and better access to mobile users and things than its previous generations (4G/3G). It is mainly attributed to more frequency spectrum resources and advanced radio access technologies. However, such evolution does not come without pains. In this talk, I would like to use the evolution from 3G/4G to 5G to showcase the pains and lessons that we have learned in our recent studies. Surprisingly, we find that radio resource control fails to keep pace with the growing radio resources. As a result, 5G is much slower than it can and even fails unnecessarily because 5G radio resource is not fully or properly utilized. Finally, I would like to present some insights and future work to scale up radio resource control in 5G and next generation (xG) networks.
Dragutin Petkovic
(Professor, San Francisco State University)
Bio: Dragutin Petkovic (IEEE Life Fellow since 2018, IEEE Fellow since 1998) received Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from UC Irvine in 1983 in the area of biomedical image analysis, and B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering and multidisciplinary studies respectively from University of Belgrade, Serbia with emphasis on image and signal analysis. He is currently a professor of computer science at San Francisco State University (SFSU) since 2003 where he was computer science department chair from 2003 to 2015. In 2019, he founded and co-leads the multidisciplinary SFSU Graduate Certificate in Ethical Artificial Intelligence together with SFSU Department of Philosophy and School of Business. He was a founder and Director of SFSU Center for Computing for Life Sciences from 2005 till 2018 and collaborated on multiple NIH grants with Stanford University in the areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for bioinformatics. He held positions at VMware as a Senior Director, Applications, and as senior manager and researcher at IBM Almaden Research center, San Jose (1983-2000). His research focus included content based retrieval (he was founder of trend-setting IBM Query by Image Content QBIC project). For last 10 years his work combines AI and ease of use and has a goal to bring technology closer to people and users. Due to his concerns about the state of the ethics and trustworthiness of AI systems and their possibly negative implications to society, his recent focus is on explainable and trustworthy AI to which he contributes by papers, books, workshops, talks and by education of broader community via SFSU Certificate in Ethical AI.
Title For Talk: GenAI and Education: challenges, opportunities and some thoughts
Abstract: GenAI emerged as the fastest growing commercial technology with broad, strong and disruptive potential to affect all aspects of society: from business and education to everyday things we do. Recent IMF study on impact of AI on work predicts that 40% of jobs will be affected by GenAI, and for the first time most of those will be white collar jobs. GenAI is everywhere and easy to use, available 7/24, but it has its challenges and limitations. It also has very disruptive impact on education. This talk will have 3 parts: we will cover at very high level how GenAI work, then use this knowledge to summarize its issues, challenges and limitations, and then talk about its impact on education with some thoughts and educational experiences form speaker’s teaching at SFSU.
Important Deadlines
| Full Paper Submission: | 19th November 2024 |
| Acceptance Notification: | 1st December 2024 |
| Final/Camera-ready Paper Submission: | 20th December 2024 |
| Early Bird Registration: | 11th December 2024 |
| Presentation Submission: | 26th December 2024 |
| Conference: | 6th - 8th January 2025 |
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