Sydney AI Meetup 2024

Toby Walsh is Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales, research group leader at Data61, adjunct professor at QUT, external Professor of the Department of Information Science at Uppsala University, an honorary fellow of the School of Informatics at Edinburgh University and an Associate Member of the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, and of AI Communications. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of the ACM, Journal of Automated Reasoning and the Constraints journal. He has been elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and the European Coordinating Committee for AI in recognition of his research in artificial intelligence and service to the community.

Distinguished Professor Fang Chen is a globally recognized, award-winning leader in AI and data science. Currently, she serves as the Executive Director of the Data Science Institute at the University of Technology Sydney. Her career spans prominent roles, including Dean of the Faculty at Beijing Jiaotong University and senior leadership positions at Intel, Motorola, and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Fang's expertise lies in developing innovative, data-driven solutions to complex challenges across large-scale networks in various sectors, including transportation, water, energy, agriculture, telecommunications, education, health, financial services, real estate, and retail. Her extensive experience in industry, government, and academia has made her a driving force in shaping digital transformation initiatives and creating world-class R&D strategies. She is also a staunch advocate for ethical and human-centred AI practices.

Dr. Alberto Chierici is an accomplished entrepreneur, scientist, and investor with over a decade of expertise in data science, natural language processing, conversational AI, and product management. Holding a Ph.D. in Computer Science from NYU, his research focused on dialogue systems and human-computer interaction. As a seasoned professional, he supports and empowers founders, helping to shape the vision and trajectory of tech-driven products. Alberto is the author of The Ethics of AI: Facts, Fictions, and Forecasts, a thought-provoking exploration of the ethical implications of artificial intelligence. His career includes founding and co-founding companies in the InsurTech and AI sectors, earning multiple industry accolades for delivering innovative customer experiences. Passionate about mentoring, advising, and consulting, Alberto is an advocate for ethical AI and strives to advance the field with integrity and insight.

Dr. Ying is a professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sydney. Previously, he was a tenured professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at SUNY Albany (USA), where he was also affiliated with Computer Science and founded the UAlbany Machine Learning Group. Dr. Ying received the University at Albany’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activities (2022) and the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities (2023). He regularly serves as an (Senior) Area Chair for major machine learning conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, AAAI, and AISTATS. His research focuses on the theory and algorithms of machine learning and deep learning, with active collaboration with IBM on trustworthy AI.

Developer Relations Manager - Strategic Researcher Engagement, Asia Pacific South, NVIDIA. After his PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University of Namur (Belgium), Dr. Johan Barthélemy joined the SMART Infrastructure Facility of the University of Wollongong (Australia) where he was a Lecturer and the head of the Digital Living Lab researching and developing AI and AIoT solutions for smart cities and environmental monitoring. Being passionate about applied AI and how to accelerate it with GPUs, he is now a Developer Relations Manager at NVIDIA, helping developers and scientists in their journey to build the next generation of AI-based solutions.

Chuhao Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Sunflower AI, a Sydney-based startup transforming live events with real-time captioning and translation powered by AI. Sunflower AI has worked with clients including SXSW Sydney, CSIRO and NSW Government to make events more inclusive for diverse audiences. Chuhao received Global Talent Visa in 2021 and Sunflower AI was recognised as Best New Idea from Startup Daily in 2024.

Owen Elliott is a Solutions Architect at Marqo, specialising in AI-powered multimodal vector search solutions. He works with companies to improve search relevance for large scale systems which serve results to millions of users. With expertise in systems architecture, simulation, and AI, he focuses on feasible solutions to real-world business problems, drawing on experience across industries including agriculture, banking, mining, defence, and eCommerce. At Marqo, Owen works with a team developing next-generation information retrieval technology for search and recommendation systems, leveraging multimodal models for dense and hybrid retrieval across text, images, audio, and video. He also collaborates with Marqo's applied sciences team on research, contributing to leading information retrieval conferences. His research centres on dense retrieval algorithms and the expressive capabilities of multimodal embeddings.