CCC at MIT-Chile

MIT CCC PhD Candidates lead the first MIT-Chile Research Workshop in Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and Data Visualization

In January 2023, CCC PhD Candidates Belén Saldías and Maggie Hughes hosted several workshops on Human-Centered Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Data Visualization, and Causal Inference for the MIT–Chile Research Workshops. This initiative exposed students and general audience participants to Artificial Intelligence, Visualization, and Causality research through lectures, hands-on workshops, and scholar discussions and opportunities in two major cities in Chile, Santiago and Concepción.

Our collaborators’ support allowed us to host more than 100 students, out of whom 44% self-identify as women or non-binary, and 30% are not from Santiago (traveling internationally from 6 different countries and from northern and southern regions of Chile–for whom we also provided travel funding). It was four days in Concepción and four days in Santiago.

Santiago: http://chileconf.mit.edu/santiago
Concepción: http://chileconf.mit.edu/concepcion

Date: January 2023
Type: Prototype Workshop
MIT–Chile Human-Centered AI Visualization Research Workshop is a collaborative initiative by MIT, MIT MISTI, MIT Media Lab, MIT CCC, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC), DCC UC, CENIA, IMFD, iHealth, and HAIVis to bring together research-focused lectures and talks for the scientific community in Chile.
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Motivating Context

The idea to create this workshop originated in early June, 2022. Quickly after, the organizers and program chairs, 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.

Concepción Cohort. 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. 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.

Approach

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. Along with lectures we had more than 20 speakers, of which 7 traveled internationally, whose focus was on their latest research in Human-Centered AI and Data Visualization.

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.

See more highlights in: https://sites.google.com/media.mit.edu/mit-chile-hcai-viz/home

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