A computer program that has solved the game of checkers — and was awarded the title ‘world checker champion’ — is just one of many technological inventions being discussed at this year’s Intelligent Systems Collaborative conference, held for the first time at UBC Okanagan from May 25 to 27.
Expected to attract more than 200 Canadian and international researchers, students and industry professionals, the annual conference is a forum for the exchange ideas and results in the computer science areas of:
- Artificial Intelligence, covering topics like machine learning for stock market prediction, and games and natural language processing.
- Graphics Interface, including areas of human-computer interaction and representing realistic images on a computer.
- Computer and Robot Vision, covering how to get robots to understand and navigate through their environments.
“The conference is really three conferences in one, each with its own theme and research topics,” says Ramon Lawrence, assistant professor with UBC Okanagan’s Department of Computer Science. “The topics discussed at this conference may eventually emerge as the next generation of products. Technologies like the Wii Remote and the robotic vacuum are the result of prior research in these areas.”
One of the anticipated highlights is speaker Jonathan Schaeffer’s presentation about his work on building a perfect checkers-playing computer program that never loses. Other invited speakers will discuss how systems predict the Internet search results you require, and talk about the latest graphics hardware.
“This conference provides members of local universities the opportunity to attend a world-class conference in their neighborhood,” says Lawrence. “Students and faculty can interact with researchers that they may never otherwise have the opportunity to meet. It is a major accomplishment for UBC Okanagan to host this conference and all the invited speakers and researchers.”
Although geared for researchers, students and industry professionals in the computer science community, the conference is open to the public. For more information or to register visit http://aigicrv.ok.ubc.ca/.
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