Don Bosco College of Engineering organizes Lightning Talk Series with Binghamton University, New York

Don Bosco College of Engineering (DBCE), Fatorda, Goa in its ongoing endeavor to enhance the quality of education for its students has spread its wings further by signing the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with the prestigious Binghamton University, New York. Further initiating an attempt to strengthen both entities by finding ways of combining their complementary resources and strengths, the Lightning Talk Series was organized in collaboration with the Binghamton University.

The first talk under this series was by Dr. Hiroki Sayama, Professor, Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, and the Director of the Center for Collective Dynamics of Complex Systems (CoCo), at Binghamton University, State University of New York, USA on the topic ‘Overview of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning’.

Avila Naik, Liaison Officer – DBCE and Binghamton and Training & Placement Officer, DBCE introduced Dr. Hiroki Sayama to the participants. In the first session on ‘Basics of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Intelligence – Historical Background and Current Developments’, Prof. Sayama spoke about the origin of Artificial Intelligence, Turing Machine and Turing Test, Modern Artificial Neural Networks, Cybernetics, AI Winters, Relevance of Statistics and Data Analytics, Regression, Optimization, Machine Learning, Artificial Neural Networks, Deep Learning, etc. He mentioned, “Don’t get drowned in the vast ocean of methods and tools. Buzzwords and fads keep changing.”

In the second session on ‘Limitations of Current AI/MI and what are needed for today’s complex problem solving’ he spoke about Mechanistic Modeling of Complex Social Systems, Models in Data Science and AI and presented two case studies on COVID-19 Response Planning; and Exploration of Society: As-It-Could-B. He concluded by saying, “Science needs Pattern Discovery and Mechanistic Modelling and we need to educate people on both.”

In the third session on Binghamton University and the Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, he mentioned, “Systems thinking, and problem-solving skills will be an invaluable asset when you blaze a new trail in any scientific, engineering, business, or management profession, within today’s increasingly complex world.”

In the Q&A session, there were a lot of questions put forward by the students, staff, and other participants. The talk ended with Ms. Avila proposing a vote of thanks to the speaker, management, staff, students, and participants. Fr. Kinley D’Cruz, Director, DBCE presented Prof. Sayama with a memento as a token of appreciation. Dr. Neena Panandikar expressed contentment over the success of this event.