A February 12, 2020 announcement (received via email) from ARPICO (Society of Italian Researchers and Professionals in Western Canada) features an upcoming March 2020 meeting,

ARPICO’s activity in 2020 will begin on Wednesday March 4^th at the Italian Cultural Centre, Room 5, near the Museum & Art Gallery.

We’re sure many of us have often heard the words “artificial intelligence” also known by its acronym “AI”, a concept that appears to be infiltrating many aspects of our lives. It is probably a good guess to say that many of us wonder what AI really is and about the pros and cons of AI technology’s ubiquitous presence.

While it would take far longer than the typical ARPICO speaking event duration to even define AI, we will be able to delve into some of its workings and their effect on our lives at our next event when we are very pleased to host Dr. Cristina Conati, who will be presenting “The Eyes Are the Windows to the Mind: Implications for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven Personalized Interaction“

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Ahead of the speaking event, ARPICO will be holding its 2020 Annual General Meeting in the same location. We encourage everyone to participate in the AGM and have their say on all aspects of ARPICO’s matters. ARPICO is made by all of its members, not just the Board, and it is therefore paramount that you all make an effort to attend, let us know what your wishes are for the Society and tell us how we can do better together as we go forward.

If you are driving to the venue, there is plenty of free parking space.

We look forward to seeing everyone there.

The evening agenda is as follows:

• 5:45PM to 6:30PM – Annual General Meeting
  • [ Doors Open for Registration at 5:30PM ]
• 7:00pm – Start of the evening Event with introductions & lecture by Dr. Cristina Conati
  • [ Doors Open for Registration at 6:30PM ]
• 8:00 pm – Q & A Period
• to follow – Mingling & Refreshments until about 9:30 pm

Here’s a description of the talk and Dr. Conati,

Eye-tracking has been extensively used both in psychology for understanding various aspects of human cognition, as well as in human computer interaction (HCI) for evaluation of interface design or as a form of direct input. In recent years, eye-tracking has also been investigated as a source of information for machine learning models that predict relevant user states and traits (e.g., attention, confusion, learning, perceptual abilities). These predictions can then be leveraged by AI agents to personalize the interaction with their users. In this talk, Dr. Conati will provide an overview of the research her lab has done in this area, including predicting user cognitive skills, and affective states, with applications to User-Adaptive Visualizations and Intelligent Tutoring Systems.

Dr. Conati is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She received an M.Sc. in Computer Science at the University of Milan, as well as an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Intelligent Systems at the University of Pittsburgh. Conati’s research is at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Cognitive Science, with the goal to create intelligent interactive systems that can capture relevant user’s properties (states, skills, needs) and personalize the interaction accordingly. Conati has over 100 peer-reviewed publications in this field and her research has received awards from a variety of venues, including UMUAI, the Journal of User Modeling and User Adapted Interaction (2002), the ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2007), the International Conference of User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP 2013, 2014), TiiS, ACM Transactions on Intelligent Interactive Systems (2014), and the International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA 2016).

I have more registration information from the announcement,

WHEN (AGM): Wednesday, March 4th, 2020 at 5:45PM (doors open at 5:30PM)

WHEN (EVENT): Wednesday, March 4th, 2020 at 7:00PM (doors open at 6:30PM)

WHERE: Italian Cultural Centre – Museum & Art Gallery – Room 5 – 3075 Slocan St, Vancouver, BC, V5M 3E4

RSVP: Please RSVP at EventBrite or email info@arpico.ca

Tickets are Needed

• Tickets are FREE, but all individuals are requested to obtain “free-admission” tickets on EventBrite site due to limited seating at the venue. Organizers need accurate registration numbers to manage wait lists and prepare name tags.
• All ARPICO events are 100% staffed by volunteer organizers and helpers, however, room rental, stationery, and guest refreshments are costs incurred and underwritten by members of ARPICO. Therefore to be fair, all audience participants are asked to donate to the best of their ability at the door or via EventBrite to “help” defray costs of the event.

You can find out more about ARPICO and its activities here. For more about Dr. Cristina Conati, there’s this University of British Columbia (UBC) profile page and this UBC profile page; a Wikipedia entry, and this 2019 interview with Tara Chklovski for Technovation (formerly Iridescent).