MIT–Chile Research Workshops



January 4 - 13, 2023

Highlights

We immensely thank everyone who participated in the first version of MIT-Chile Research Workshops in Concepción and Santiago, either as an attendee, volunteer, speaker, lecturers, and organizers. We owe our big success to all and each of you.

Further, we greatly thank our partners and sponsors, without whom this workshop would not be possible. Their support has allowed us to host more than 100 students, out of which 44% self-identify as women or non-binary, and 25% are not from Santiago (traveling internationally and from northern and southern regions of Chile–for whom we can provide travel funding).

Concepción Jan, 4th - 9th


In Concepción, with a packed program we engaged with the general audience and our student cohort in the course of 8 talks, 6 lectures, and a social event hosted at the Data Science Unit at Universidad de Concepción.

Santiago Jan, 10th - 13th


In Santiago, we had student cohort participants from 6 different countries, 15 speakers and 4 lecturers with topics ranging from bias in natural language processing and machine learning, to brain-computer interaction, and activities ranging from drawing and storytelling with data to a live EEG demo.

The idea to create this workshop originated in early June, 2022. Quickly after, the organizers, Denis Parra and Maggie Hughes, led by Belén Saldías started contacting sponsors and speakers to deliver what it will be the first-ever Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and Data Visualization experience for the largest majority of our attendees, who were keen to mention how opportunities like these are scarce in Latin America, and even more so those like these that are free of cost and provide funding for participants based in remote regions.

Daily lectures were specially designed to engage in state-of-art research discussions, active learning activities, and scaffolding opportunities oriented towards our intended learning outcomes. Students were also given pre-work to better prepare for our lecture, these homework included reviewing papers, visualizing personal data, and reflecting upon research questions. Further, students highlighted the opportunity to engage in student-driven discussions, and challenge and build upon the research opportunities and outcomes our speakers and lecturers presented in the course of our sessions.

Lectures included hands-on code development and interaction with machine learning models | Content Moderation Lecture by Belén Saldías

Students were also prompted to review and discuss published research | Natural Language Generation Lecture by Denis Parra

Our hands-on lectures also guided student towards prompt ideation and data visualization| Human-Centered Data Visualization Lecture by Maggie Hughes

A live demo of brain-computer interfacing (BCI) prompted students to wonder the role of AI in these systems | BCI and AI Lecture by Angela Vujic

Our version in Concepción was co-led by Guillermo Cabrera.

MIT Econ and Stats PhD Candidate, Mohit Karnani, lectured on causal inference.

Invited talks included international speakers, such as Professor Pavlos Protopapas.

MIT Alumn, Aarón Montoya Moraga, offered a fresh perspective in ethically engaging with AI.

Students came from all backgrounds and occupations, both industry and academia. They actively engaging in presenting their work during lectures.

Our workshop invited students to practice English the primary language for communication during these 10 days of lectures and talks.

Thanks to our volunteers and staff, this event ran smoothly and we could focus on the research and knowledge generation processes at hand.

In addition to coffee and lunch breaks, both in Concepción and in Santiago we dedicated an afternoon to socialize with the students and attendees.

Posts

Photos

Testimonials
to be published as soon as we collect the post-survey from students




Partners & Sponsors

Our January 2023 workshops required a joint budget of USD 30K offered by our prestigious sponsors.