October 10, 2020

Scientific excellence and transnational exchange characterized the meeting of the ML2R’s Steering Board, the scientific advisory board of the Competence Center ML2R. The Steering Board integrates the ML2R into a network of outstanding, world-renowned researchers in the fields of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. During the three-day virtual event, the members of the Steering Board gained extensive insights into the work of ML2R, engaged in direct exchange with ML2R scientists and provided important impulses for the further work of ML2R.

In line with the motto “Fresh Off Your Desk – Share Your Thoughts”, the meeting of the ML2R’s team and nine members of its scientific advisory board, the Steering Board, offered the opportunity for topical and strategic dialogue and networking. The event focused in particular on the direction of the competence center’s research activities as well as its national and international visibility and served to intensify the exchange within the ML2R’s network. The three-day online event, which took place from September 21^st to 23^rd, included participants from six time zones and brought together experts from California, USA to Athens, Greece.

International experts emphasize excellence of ML2R

Lectures by Prof. Dr. Katharina Morik and Prof. Dr. Stefan Wrobel, speakers of ML2R, and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael ten Hompel and Prof. Dr. Christian Bauckhage, representatives of the ML2R partners Fraunhofer IML and the University of Bonn, provided the Steering Board members with in-depth insights into the work of the Competence Center. The members of the advisory board also presented their current research and discussed relevant developments and issues in the research fields of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (ML) with ML2R researchers. The program of the Steering Board meeting presented its participants with an innovative interaction format: Within the framework of individual sessions, the ML2R researchers were able to enter into a dialogue with members of the Steering Board in accordance with their research profiles and were advised by them.

On the basis of the impressions gathered, the members of the Steering Board gave their feedback on the competence center ML2R and its research activities in a concluding session. They emphasized the excellence of the Competence Center and highlighted the contribution of ML2R scientists in highly relevant fields of research. They for example pointed to the ML2R’s research efforts in quantum technologies, modular Machine Learning, ML methods for understanding and processing natural language as well as ML technologies under consideration of hardware limitations. In addition, the Steering Board members set important impulses in terms of strategy and visibility for the future direction of the Competence Center.

About the ML2R advisory boards

In its work, ML2R benefits from two advisory boards: the Steering Board and the Industrial Board. The Steering Board, which is composed of internationally renowned scientists, and the Industrial Board, which includes representatives from industry, help shape the ML2R’s research agenda from both a scientific and user perspective, thus enabling external quality assurance.

The Steering Board Members:

Prof. Dr. Arno Siebes
Professor for Algorithmic Data Analysis at Utrecht University, Netherlands

Prof. Dr. Dimitrios Gunopulos
Professor for Informatics and Telecommunications at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Dr. Francesco Bonchi
Scientific Director at the ISI-Foundation, Italy

Dr. Kamalika Das
Machine Learning Engineer at VMware, United States of America

Prof. Dr. Osmar Zaïane
Professor for Computing Science at the University of Alberta and Scientific Director of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (AMII), Canada

Prof. Dr. Srinivasan Parthasarathy
Professor for Computer Science and Engineering as well as Biomedical Informatics at Ohio State University, United States of America

Prof. Dr. Stan Matwin
Professor for Computer Science at Dalhousie University and Director of the Institute for Big Data Analytics, Canada

Prof. Dr. Thomas Gärtner
Professor for Machine Learning at the Technical University of Vienna, Austria

Prof. Dr. Thorsten Joachims
Professor for Computer Science and Information Science at Cornell University, United States of America

Prof. Dr. Geoff Webb
Professor for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and Research Director of the Monash Data Futures Institute at Monash University, Australia