First AI Week kicks off at Tel Aviv University

AI Week, Tel Aviv University’s first international weeklong conference on the fast-growing technological discipline of artificial intelligence, opened on November 17 to industry experts, academics, business executives and government officials from Israel and abroad.

The brainchild of TAU’s Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center (Blavatnik ICRC) and its Yuval Ne’eman Workshop for Science, Technology and Security, AI Week features lectures, seminars and workshops on the greatest challenges facing the burgeoning industry. The conference is being presented in association with Intel and the Israel Innovation Authority and will attract over 2,000 technologists, researchers and data scientists from around the world.

AI Week explores the role of artificial intelligence in medicine, computer vision, startups, transportation, human capital development and more. Events are slated to address state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, data science, applied machine learning and AI predictive applications.

“As Bill Gates said recently, artificial intelligence is poised to overtake electricity in its importance to the world, so we have much to discuss this week,” master of ceremonies Menny Barzilay, chief technology officer of Blavatnik ICRC, said in opening remarks at a filled-to-capacity Smolarz Auditorium at TAU. “Here, in this auditorium, we have gathered some of the world’s leading minds in artificial intelligence to answer the burning questions facing the industry.”

Leading experts in the field of AI delivered keynote addresses at the main plenaries, including Prof. Amnon Shashua, president and CEO of Mobileye; Aharon Aharon, CEO of the Israel Innovation Authority; Dr. Kira Radinsky, chair and chief technology officer of Diagnostic Robotics; and Dr. Ben Lorica, chief data scientist at O’Reilly Media.

Throughout the week, the conference offers a range of opportunities to learn about the latest AI technologies. In addition to two main plenaries, there are 10 different tracks focusing on the latest industry trends, an AI research symposium day and a startup pavilion.

The AI Week hackathon takes place on November 20-21 at Intel’s new smart building in Petach Tikva, outside of Tel Aviv. The focus of the hackathon is to utilize AI to improve healthcare, education, environmental protection and more. Participants will be asked to tackle several critical data science challenges.

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American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel’s most influential, comprehensive and sought-after center of higher learning, Tel Aviv University (TAU). TAU is recognized and celebrated internationally for creating an innovative, entrepreneurial culture on campus that generates inventions, startups and economic development in Israel. TAU is ranked ninth in the world, and first in Israel, for producing start-up founders of billion-dollar companies, an achievement that surpassed several Ivy League universities. To date, 2,500 US patents have been filed by Tel Aviv University researchers — ranking TAU #1 in Israel, #10 outside of the US and #66 in the world.