Major European AI/ML conference organised by the ELISE project in Helsinki
In late June 2024, 200 members of the ELISE and ELLIS community met in Helsinki for the ELISE Wrap Up Conference and ELLIS Community Event. Organised by ELISE, the event brought together top European researchers in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML), outstanding PhD students, ELLIS and ELISE coordinators, and representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who are developing innovative applications supported by ELISE. The meeting was also joined by the Finnish Member of Parliament and former Minister of Transport and Communications, Timo Harakka, and leading Canadian computer scientist, Yoshua Bengio, who gave the closing keynote address remotely.
Photo by Negar Rahnamae/ELLIS Unit Jena
Featured sessions
To open the conference, ELLIS President Bernhard Schölkopf’s keynote speech gave an overview of ELISE’s achievements, plans for ELLIS moving forward, as well as a fascinating scientific talk. Closing the first day, ELLIS Board Member, Professor Neil Lawrence gave a keynote to launch his new book, The Atomic Human: Understanding Ourselves in the Age of AI. Many of the themes of the keynote addresses were expanded upon in a panel discussion, where Timo Harakka and Professors Schölkopf and Lawrence were joined by Jessica Montgomery and Professor Petri Myllymäki.
Streams of the three keynote addresses and the panel discussion can be found on Youtube.
Co-located workshops and working groups
ELISE’s work package leaders hosted workshops that shared their achievements with the wider ELLIS community, and discussed and planned ways forward after the ELISE project ends in August 2024. This included a workshop on the ELLIS PhD Program, which has grown beyond expectations thanks in large part to the ELISE project.
Lynn Anthonissen, PhD Program Coordinator, shares the impressive results of the ELLIS PhD Program with members of the ELLIS community. Photo by Negar Rahnamae/ELLIS Unit Jena
Some of the members of ELISE’s EuroHPC Working Group. The group used the conference to advance important work in understanding Europe’s compute infrastructure needs. Photo by Negar Rahnamae/ELLIS Unit Jena
SMEs from ELISE’s 1st and 2nd Open Calls shared their innovative work at the event. Photo by Negar Rahnamae/ELLIS Unit Jena
ELLIS Semantic, Symbolic and Interpretable Machine Learning Workshop. Photo by Negar Rahnamae/ELLIS Unit Jena
ELISE co-organised four ELLIS Research Program Workshops at the event. These workshops hosted their own participants and guest speakers. The Robust Machine Learning, Semantic, Symbolic and Interpretable Machine Learning,Theory, Algorithms and Computations of Modern Learning Systems, and Human-centric Machine Learning Research Programs hosted workshops.
ELLIS Robust Machine Learning Workshop. Photo by Negar Rahnamae/ELLIS Unit Jena
External links for the Research Program workshops:
Joint work with European NoEs
Participants and organisers of ELLIS’s Human-centric Machine Learning Workshop in Helsinki. The workshop was a collaboration between ELISE and ELIAS. Photo by Negar Rahnamae/ELLIS Unit Jena
The event was also an opportunity for ELISE and ELLIS to extend their collaborative work with other European Networks of Excellence Centres (NoEs) in AI/ML. ELISE collaborated with the NoE, ELIAS, to organise a workshop for ELLIS’s Human-centric Machine Learning Research Program.
Members of the ELISE Wrap Up Conference and ELLIS Community Event participate in the joint session with the VISION 4th Community Workshop. Photo by Negar Rahnamae/ELLIS Unit Jena
The congregation in Helsinki also joined the 4th VISION Community Workshop in Thessaloniki for three remote sessions. The aim of these sessions was to plan how to sustain the work of the NoEs after the ICT-48 projects end.
“This successful event was, in some ways, the first of its kind,” says Christopher Murray, the Project Coordinator of ELISE. “It was a unique opportunity for diverse groups within ELISE and ELLIS to come together, share their achievements, and make lasting connections. The speakers we had at the event are world-leading, and the Research Programs, companies, and coordinators who participated are advancing the field in remarkable ways.”
More information
Learn more about the event and take a look at the detailed program here.
Find more impressions of the event on the social media channels of ELISE and ELLIS:
About ELISE
ELISE is a network of artificial intelligence research hubs. Based on the highest level research, it spreads its knowledge and methods in academia, industry and society. The network invites all ways of reasoning, considering all types of data applicable for almost all sectors of science and industry. We do this while being aware of data safety and security, and striving to explainable and trustworthy outcomes. ELISE works in cooperation with ELLIS (European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems). ELISE is part of the EU Horizon 2020 ICT-48 portfolio, and is coordinated by Aalto University.