Successful First MIT-Chile Human Centered AI & Visualization Research Workshop

January, 2023. With the participation of more than 100 students from different countries, the first first MIT-Chile Human Centered AI & Visualization Research Workshop was held at the San Joquín campus of the Catholic University of Chile..

At the event, presentations and talks were given on topics ranging from natural language bias, machine learning, brain-computer interactions, and activities ranging from storytelling with data and a live demonstration of an electroencephalography. 

The idea of creating this workshop originated in early June 2022. Shortly thereafter, the organizers, Denis Parra, researcher at the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data and academic at the Department of Computer Science at the Catholic University of Chile, Maggie Hughes, PhD candidate in Media Arts and Sciences in the Center for Constructive Communication at the MIT Media Lab, and led by Belén Saldías, Ph.D. Candidate at MIT's Center for Constructive Communication, began contacting sponsors and exhibitors to organize the event. "Opportunities like these are rare in Latin America, and even more so those like this one that are free and provide funding for participants in remote regions," explains Belén Saldías. 

The organization designed the daily lectures with the objective of motivating participants to join discussions on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence research with a focus on People. Active learning activities were created as well as networking opportunities. Student participants received pre-conference materials to better prepare for the conference: they had access to review papers, assignments, personal data visualization exercises and reflections on research questions. 

At the end of the conference, participants highlighted the opportunity to participate in student-led discussions, which allowed them to take advantage of research opportunities and the results of the presentations.

The activity was supported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT Global Experiences; the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia Artificial, CenIA; the Millennium Institute in Engineering and Artificial Intelligence for Health, iHealth; the Millennium Institute in Engineering and Artificial Intelligence for Health, iHealth; the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Dataand with the sponsorship of MIT Media Lab, Agrosuper, Amazon Web Services and HAI-VIS , the Human-centered Artificial Intelligence and Visualization group at Pontificia Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.