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Aarhus Summer School on Learning Theory

Summer School

Aarhus Summer School on Learning Theory

The Aarhus Summer School on Learning Theory brings together top international PhD students to educate them on fundamental topics in theory of machine learning. The summer school takes place in beautiful Aarhus, Denmark.

Aarhus is often mentioned as one of the happiest cities in the world and a hidden gem for travelers. This makes for a relaxing and inspiring environment for excursions, discussions, and collaborations.

Speakers:

Shai Ben-David
Shai Ben-David grew up in Jerusalem, Israel. He attended the Hebrew University studying physics, mathematics and psychology. He received his PhD under the supervision of Saharon Shelah and Menachem Magidor for a thesis in set theory. Professor Ben-David was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto in the Mathematics and the Computer Science departments, and in 1987 joined the faculty of the CS Department at the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology). He held visiting faculty positions at the Australian National University in Canberra (1997-1998) and at Cornell University (2001-2004). In August 2004 he joined the School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo.

Amin Karbasi
Amin Karbasi is currently an associate professor of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Statistics & Data Science at Yale University. He is also a research staff scientist at Google NY. He has been the recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award, Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, National Academy of Engineering Grainger Award, Bell Lab Prize, Amazon Research Award, Google Faculty Research Award, Microsoft Azure Research Award, Simons Research Fellowship, and ETH Research Fellowship. 

His work has also been recognized with a number of paper awards, including Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Interventions Conference (MICCAI) 2017, Facebook MAIN Award from Montreal Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience Conference 2018, International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTAT) 2015, IEEE ComSoc Data Storage 2013, International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP) 2011, ACM SIGMETRICS 2010, and IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT) 2010 (runner-up). His Ph.D. thesis received the Patrick Denantes Memorial Prize 2013 from the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL, Switzerland.

Amir Yehudayoff
Amir received his Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science and was a two-year member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is currently a professor in the Department of Computer Science in the University of Copenhagen, and in the Department of Mathematics at the Technion. His main research area is theoretical computer science, with a recent focus on the theory of machine learning.

Nikita Zhivotovskiy
Nikita Zhivotovskiy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of California Berkeley. He previously held postdoctoral positions at ETH Zürich in the department of mathematics hosted by Afonso Bandeira, and at Google Research, Zürich hosted by Olivier Bousquet. He also spent time at the Technion I.I.T. mathematics department hosted by Shahar Mendelson. Nikita completed his thesis at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology under the guidance of Vladimir Spokoiny and Konstantin Vorontsov.

More about the summer school

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Summer course: CyberSafe – Mastering the Art of Cybersecurity

Summer course:

CYbersafe: Mastering the art of cybersecurity

Participate in a course with students from other Danish universities and international students as an elective on your study programme. The course will be an immersive course designed to cater to students interested in cybersecurity.

The course will cover the basics of cyber-security including the cyber threat landscape, network security, information security, cyber-security applications in IoT and robotics, cryptography, security awareness and best practices, incident response and digital forensics, and legal and ethical aspects of cybersecurity.  The course will include practical labs and hands-on exercises to allow participants to apply their knowledge and skills in a safe and controlled environment.

The practical experiences will help attendees to deepen their understanding of cybersecurity concepts. The course will be taught by cybersecurity experts from both academia and industry, to provide the participants with basic knowledge and advanced concepts coupled with practical insights from real-world experiences.

The course is aimed at university students studying computer science, information technology, cybersecurity, or related fields, Early Career Professionals, IT and Security Professionals. Those looking to specialize in cybersecurity and gain hands-on experience in the field.

Housing costs

To cover housing costs, 16 grants are offered to students from Danish universities supported by DIREC.

Apply here before May 1 to be considered for one of the grants

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PhD School: Confronting Data through Design Methods – Speculating with Generative AI

phd school:

Confronting data through design methods

– Speculating with generative AI (GAI)

This course is aimed at PhD students, researching within the fields of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Science- and Technology Studies (STS), Participatory Design (PD) & Critical Data Studies, but the course is open to PhD students from all areas of work- and design studies. The course is given as a mix of hands-on exercises with GenAI tools and lectures and seminars on speculative design and critical responses to GenAI interwoven throughout the 3-day course. In addition, the students engage in peer-feedback as part of the development of their essays, which focus on applying GenAI in relation to their own PhD project.

The course explores how we can use design methods to probe, construct, question, and critique different types of data. The goal of the course is that participants are introduced to both theoretical, concrete, and practical knowledge about different modes of doing research through design as well as gaining an overview of current debates regarding how data-driven technologies can be made ethical and responsible.

This year’s course focus on applying GenAI for data analysis within this area of research.



The rapid introduction of GAI into organizational work through formal digital transformation initiatives as well as informal adoption of freely available tools is quickly reconfiguring the conditions of collaborative organizing and the means through which we speculate futures labor and society. How do we approach, for example, which practices and skills we automate or retain as requiring human experience? What futures are rendered more realizable through AI-enhanced data analysis methods and techniques? How is this moment of GAI hype and increased accessibility impacting forms of expertise, authority, and accountability in data work?



While GAI is entering data work for its expediency and utility, it is not always held accountable as a method of speculation and design even as it shapes the methods and tools through which we develop future scenarios with and through data analysis. Adopting a design perspective, we will also attend to the people in each case who are the subjects of data and have a stake in design outcomes of working with large-scale data, accessible for them with GAI.



Participants will obtain concrete skills in designing participatory “scenario-based workshops” utilizing GenAI tools, including DALL-E and ChatGPT. Furthermore, the course is set up to facilitate discussions and to generate ideas relating to the participants own PhD projects.



Working hands-on with GAI in a speculative design and research through design approach, will enable participants to enter into debates over responsible use of AI and other data-driven technologies through concrete application of these tools. By applying speculative methods to consider future scenarios of organizing and collaborative work students will problematize and concretize opportunities for designing/using data-driven technologies ethically and responsibly in their own cases.

The course is offered as a collaboration between DIREC, ITU and UCPH.  

Accessibility


If any participants have any special needs in order to attend the course, they are kindly requested to contact the organizers and we will try to accommodate such needs.




Preparation

In order to prepare for the course, the course participants need to:

  1. 

Read the literature from the reading list prior to the course (the course curriculum will be distributed after enrollment in the course). Download free version of DALL-E and ChatGPT.
  2. 

Submit their essays before May 15 2024 (2-4 pages) reflecting on the question: “How might combining methods from speculative design and GenAI help you think about your data in new ways? 

The readings and the essays are a way to reflect upon the topics prior to the course. The essays will also help us to identify participants interests/considerations prior to the course. Furthermore, this preparatory work aims to support their active participation throughout the course.

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Young Researcher Entrepreneurship Bootcamp

phd course

Young Researcher entrepreneurship bootcamp

Join the Young Researcher Entrepreneurship Bootcamp (YREB) PhD-course (2.5 ECTS) to grow your entrepreneurial mindset and learn how that can benefit both your current research and future career.

The course specifically leverages AI, data science, and computer science in the service of societal and environmental challenges in for instance health-tech, green-tech, manufacturing, and business. The aim is to build entrepreneurial capacity and to increase the establishment of university-based startups. 
 
Participants are not expected to bring their own startup ideas. Instead, you will be introduced to idea generation techniques to create your own concepts in teams during the course.
 
Target group: We welcome PhD students and Post-doctoral researchers from computer/data related disciplines with little to no business experience from any Danish university.

 

The programme

The themes for each of the four days are as follows:

May 27:  Entrepreneurial Mindset
May 28:  Design Thinking & Concept Development
May 29:  ML Ops & Venture Building
May 30:  Commercialization & Pitch Readiness
May 31:  Culminating Pitches & Looking Ahead

The programme is co-developed by AAU, DTU, DIREC and AI Pioneer Centre.
 
This year the course takes place in DTU Skylab and we recommend you to stay at Zleep Hotel Lyngby
 
We look forward to seeing you at DTU Skylab.

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AI Conference: Unleashing AI – One Byte at a Time

AI Conference

Unleashing AI – One Byte at a time

– Exploring AI possibilities together

Join us for a day full of talks and hands-on sessions led by top-notch experts from academia and tech-savvy businesses. Discover the possibilities of new data processes, machine learning, and AI as they pave the way for groundbreaking innovations and untapped opportunities.

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out, this event is designed for everyone – no prior AI experience required! Don’t miss out on this chance to broaden your horizons and immerse yourself in the fascinating world of AI.

Secure your spot now and join us for a thrilling day packed with invaluable AI insights and knowledge.

Program

8.30-9.00: Doors open & arrival

9.00-9.15: Welcome

9.15-9.45: Keynote: Digital Twins and Development of AI Solutions 
By Professor Peter Gorm Larsen, Aarhus University

A digital twin is a digital representation of a physical object, process, human, place, system, or electronic unit. The purpose of the digital twin is to answer questions related to the physical equivalent, the physical twin, with very little delay. Along with new sensor technology, such a digital representation can provide new technical insights, which can help to improve a product’s performance and inspire the next generation of the product. The idea of using ”twins” in engineering environments dates back to NASA’s Apollo program in the 1970s, and it gradually began seeing adoption in industry in 2002. Last year Gartner predicted that the market for digital twins would ‘jump the gap’ in 2026 and reach several hundred billion dollars over the following 5 years.

9.45-10.30: Keynote: Exploring the Depths of Algorithms and AI
By Professor Kasper Green Larsen, Aarhus University

How can Google handle more than 8 billion searches per day? And how does artificial intelligence work? In this keynote, Professor Kasper Green Larsen from Department of Computer Science at Aarhus University will explain what algorithms are, how different algorithms can be more or less effective, and why it is important. Next, we will take a closer look at artificial intelligence, also known as machine learning, to understand how computers can “learn” to understand natural language, recognize images, make predictions, and even write text that is very difficult to distinguish from something written by humans. Finally, we will also address the ethical issues involved and what researchers in the field will be concerned with in the coming decades.

10.45-12.15: Breakout sessions
Participants can choose between three different workshops, featuring prominent tech companies. 

12.15-13.00: Lunch

13.00-14.30: Breakout sessions
Participants can choose between three different workshops, featuring prominent tech companies.

14.30-15.00: Networking

The event is co-hosted by DIREC, Destination Aarhus, and DI Digital

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AI and Education workshop

Workshop:

AI and Education

On Wednesday, May 15, you are invited to a full-day workshop in Copenhagen on AI and education, co-sponsored by the Pioneer Centre for AI and DIREC.

Through this workshop, we aim to bring together researchers, industry professionals, and educators to discuss challenges and progress related to AI in education, including (but not limited to) the potential and problems of generative AI. The short-term goals of the workshop are knowledge sharing and networking, while a more long-term goal could be to develop into a joint force and interest group focused on this topic.

If you sign up for the event and end up not being able to make it, please let us know as soon as possible by mail (tobo@itu.dk).

Tentative program

Below is a tentative program for the workshop:

10:00 – 10:15 Welcome + Purpose of the meeting
10:15 – 11:00 Framing speech from Mutlu Cukurova from UCL
11:00 – 11:15 Break
11:15 – 12:00 Speed talks from all participants
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 14:00 Break-out sessions in smaller groups
14:00 – 15:00 Avenues for further collaboration and networking / Summary
15:00 – 16:00 Networking event (possibly followed by dinner for those interested)

Participation will be free with lunch and coffee breaks sponsored by the Pioneer Centre and DIREC. Dinner will be pay-your-own-way.

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MatchPoints – Cybersecurity

CONFERENCE

cybersecurity

How do we maintain trust in our digital society?

Over the last 50 years, the internet has brought together 8 billion people in a digital network that offers countless opportunities for communication, trade, education, research, innovation and democratic debate. But crime has also found their way online. Cyberattacks cost society billions every year and threaten both our digital infrastructure and our privacy and data.

Criminals can steal your identity and buy goods with your credit card. They can steal company data to access information about products and customers. And they can bring down critical infrastructure and threaten our democracy by spreading “fake news” on social media. This increased threat against our digital systems places new demands on all of us – as private individuals, as employees, as managers, and as IT specialists working in both the public and private sector.

What is the best way to protect ourselves? And what societal dilemmas are we likely to encounter in our fight for better cybersecurity?

Take part in the MatchPoints conference at Aarhus University on 18–19 April 2024 to learn more about the current threat landscape and the solutions offered by the latest cybersecurity research. Understand the issues and get an interdisciplinary perspective on the solutions within this highly relevant subject, which continues to fill the media and challenge us all.

Hear from some of the world’s leading researchers and take part in debates on topics such as identity and privacy, secure digital referenda, secure digital currency, and the trade-off between security and user-friendly interfaces.

You’ll also be able to join workshops to discuss specific cyber attacks on companies, and you’ll have the opportunity to network with other cybersecurity specialists.
 
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PROGRAMME

  • How do we protect our critical water, energy, and transport infrastructure?
  • How do we ensure that our personal data is not misused online?
  • Is artificial intelligence creating new security risks and how can we avoid them?
  • Will the quantum computers of the future be able to break our current systems, and how can we avoid this happening?

ON FRIDAY 19 APRIL, there will be an evening debate on cybersecurity with Danish TV presenter Clement Kjersgaard in Aarhus City Hall.

ON SATURDAY 20 APRIL, there will be an event for the general public in DOKK1, in collaboration with the Danish University Extension

DIREC is a partner in MatchPoints

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Danish Digitalization, Data Science and AI – D3A 1.0

Conference

Danish Digitalization, Data Science and AI – D3A 1.0

We are bringing together researchers, students, and professionals from a wide range of fields to share the latest research and insights, gain new knowledge, exchange ideas, and make valuable connections across geography, scientific domains, and sub-fields. 

Danish Digitalization, Data Science and AI (D3A) is a new national conference hosted by Pioneer Centre for AI (P1), Danish Data Science Academy (DDSA) and DIREC. 

D3A is a scientific conference where the newest research and insights will be discussed. The aim is to grow the Danish digitalization, data science, and AI communities and strengthen the network for PhD students, postdocs, senior researchers, and professionals. We want to foster a collaborative and inclusive environment across Denmark. In 2024, the conference will take place on February 1-2 at Hotel Nyborg Strand. 

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ARCO Fall 2023

ARCO Fall 2023

The second ARCO workshop in 2023 will take place at the University of Southern Denmark, Campus Odense, on November 24.

ARCO (Algorithmic Research: Cooperation around Øresund) is a network for exchange of research within algorithms and to promote the general interest in this research area within the Øresund Region.

For full programme see ARCO Fall 2023.

The organizers of this workshop are Joan Boyar, Kevin Schewior, Kim Skak Larsen, and Lene Monrad Favrholdt.

ARCO is sponsored by DIREC. 

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NordiCrypt Fall 2023

Nordicrypt fall 2023

Join the third NordiCrypt meetup in Copenhagen.

NordiCrypt is a group for “IACR-style” cryptographers created by researchers from DTU, ITU and AU to promote joint networking activities for researchers in Denmark and the rest of Northern Europe. NordiCrypt is an initiative born in the context of DIREC.

NordiCrypt will organize one-day meetups in Denmark approximately every 3-6 months. The meetups are open to researchers from neighbouring fields, as well as neighbouring countries.

If you wish to give a talk, please email beda(at)itu[dot]dk. Talks by junior researchers in all fields of cryptology are highly encouraged!

More info