In this year’s edition of the conference, we have introduced a new track dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusion (D&I) in research in Data Sciences and Databases.
The new track will feature eminent keynote speakers, a live panel, and talks on channeling data science towards understanding and addressing barriers to diversity and inclusion. Additionally, we will be hosting mentorship and networking roundtables for students, faculty members, and researchers from traditionally under-represented groups to provide them an opportunity to interact with leading scientists from academia and industry. The discussion topics are expected to span a broad range that includes specific technical areas, the process of conducting research, career guidance as well as life in academia and industry.
D & I Track Program:
Schedule (in IST) | Session Title | Session | Parallel Discussions | Invited Speakers |
---|---|---|---|---|
Jan 7, 7:30 – 8:30pm | Keynote talk: Scoring Systems: At the Extreme of Interpretable Machine Learning | – | Prof. Cynthia Rudin (Duke University) | |
Jan 8, 3:00 – 4:00 pm | DNI 1 | Keynote talk: Will data science be the game changer for women’s participation in the workforce? | – | Prof. Vasanthi Srinivasan (IIM Bangalore) |
Jan 9, 1:00 – 2:00 pm | DNI 2 | Panel Discussion: Towards a more diverse and inclusive data science ecosystem | – | Panelists: Sumeet Agarwal (IIT Delhi) Tanuja Ganu (Microsoft Research), Koyel Mukherjee (Adobe Labs), Ashwani Sharma (Google Research) Moderator: Shourya Roy (Flipkart) |
Jan 9, 2:00 – 2:15 pm | DNI 2 | Invited Talk: Personal Robotics for Accessibility | – | Anirban Santara (Google Research) |
Jan 9, 2:15 – 2:30 pm | DNI 2 | Invited Talk: AI for Inclusive EdTech & Healthcare – scaling from from labs & classrooms to country scale: Some Success Stories, Opportunities, Challenges and Road Ahead | – | Soma Dhavala (Wadhwani AI) |
Jan 9, 3:00 – 3:30 pm | DNI 3 | Distinguished Guest Talk: Why this fuss about Diversity and Inclusion? | – | Swami Manohar (Microsoft Research) |
Jan 9, 3:30 – 4:30 pm | DNI 3 | Virtual Mentorship Roundtables | Career Advice | Mentor: Preethi Jyothi (IIT Bombay), Serene Banerjee (Ericsson) Host: Nikita Prabhu (Amazon) |
Applied Data Science | Mentor: Sandya Mannarswamy (Intel India), Ranjita Bhagwan (Microsoft Research) Host: Abinaya (Flipkart) | |||
Data Science Research | Mentor: Animesh Mukherjee (IIT Kharagpur), Soma Biswas (IISc Bangalore) Host: Shreya Khare (IBM Research) | |||
Research Best Practices | Mentor: Vineeth N Balasubramanian (IIT Hyderabad), Prateek Jain (Google Research) Host: Shruti Bannur (Microsoft Research) | |||
DS Careers in Industry | Mentor: Kalapriya Kannan (HP), Balaji Vasan Srinivasan (Adobe Labs), Amith Singhee (IBM Research) Host: Liyana Sahir (IISc),Pooja (Amazon) |
Mentorship Round Tables
The D&I Track will be hosting the following roundtables for selected participants to interact with mentors.
Topic: Career Advice
This roundtable will be focused on career related questions and discussions. Topics include but are not limited to: choice between industry and academia, choice between research-led career and applied technology-led career, early research opportunities for undergraduates and masters students, work-life balance, best practices for networking, changing domains etc.
Topic: Research Best Practices
The focus of this roundtable will be around best practices for conducting high quality research. Topics include but are not limited to: keeping up with latest research, pursuing high quality research, writing papers in top conferences and journals, securing sponsorship/funding, getting industry exposure while being in academia, etc.
Topic: Data Science Research
This roundtable will be focused on technical research aspects. Any topic related to data science, machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision etc. can be discussed here.
Topic: Applied Data Science
This roundtable will be focused on topics related to application of data science. Topics include but are not limited to: best practices for applying data science for real-life (societal, business) problems, data science pipeline, data quality, ML-OPs etc.
Panel Discussion
Title: Towards a more diverse and inclusive data science ecosystem
The growth of data science in both academia and industry as well as application and research have been enormous in the last decade or so. Indian institutes, large organizations, startups, governments, have been conducting world-class work on many fronts of data science. The ecosystem has created opportunities for a large talent pool of students, researchers and practitioners. In this panel, we will discuss and debate various aspects pertaining to diversity and inclusion of the talent pool.
Panelists:
- Sumeet Agarwal, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
- Tanuja Ganu, Principal Research SDE Manager, Microsoft Reseach
- Koyel Mukherjee, Research Scientist II, Adobe Research India
- Ashwani Sharma, Program Manager: Google Research and Data Commons, Google
Moderator:
- Shourya Roy, Senior Research Director, Flipkart