Out of over 170 applications, 60 of the brightest rising stars in AI for Social Impact (AISI) were selected to attend the workshop, present their research, network, and be mentored by senior AISI faculty and researchers. Here they are welcomed by CRCS director Prof. Milind Tambe.

Dr. Indrani Medhi Thies, Senior Research Scientist at Microsoft Research India, delivered the opening keynote describing her work designing technology for low literate and novice technology users around the globe. She has embedded herself within many communities, especially some in rural India, to design technology that works for everyone.

Kunal Khadilka, CMU, gives a lightning talk

Andrew Perrault, Harvard, gives a conference-style talk

Talks given by the workshop participants covered a wide breadth of topics such as AI for education, robotics, wildlife, healthcare, and hate speech. All talks were complemented with a poster session on each day, where attendees networked with the presenters and learned more about their work.

Neil Gaikwad, MIT (left), moderated a panel on the theme of Creating social impact with interdisciplinary AI research, seated by Harvard’s own Milind Tambe, Cynthia Dwork, and Jonathan Zittrain (left to right). Panelists offered experiences from their distinguished careers in law and computer science about topics such as the importance of AI researchers spending time in the worlds of their interdisciplinary collaborators, how to conduct interdisciplinary work while seeking tenure, and how to effectively manage industry partnerships while avoiding unseen biases.

Prof. Patrick Fowler, Associate Professor in the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, gave the second keynote address of the workshop, detailing his work using AI to design interventions to reduce homelessness. Professor Fowler has been championing the use of Bayesian methods that allow policy-makers to ask “what if” questions of historical data, providing valuable insights to inform intervention decisions that reduce the homeless burden in cities.

Distinguished faculty and industry research mentors dedicated an hour and a half with the rising stars discussing everything from career advice to work-life balance to “the next big thing” in AISI. Left to right: Yiling Chen, Harvard; Pragya Sur, Harvard; Milind Tambe, Harvard; David Parkes, Harvard; Ehi Nosakare, MIT; Sai Ravela, MIT (not pictured).

The rising stars shared and received feedback on their work during a poster session attended by the workshop keynote speakers, Harvard faculty and students. Researchers presented work ranging from socially designed robots to AI for wildlife and even to AI for redirecting angry tweets toward relevant online petitions!

Prof. Matthew Ferrari, Associate Professor of Biology at Penn State University, gave the final keynote address. He described his body of research in epidemic modeling which uses AI methods to help policymakers make optimal decisions about how and when to use actions such as treatment, containment, and vaccination.

Nafisat Afolake Adedokun-Shittu, University of Ilorin, remotely presented from Nigeria her group’s work designing augmented reality systems for education. Their systems are having a positive impact on student retention of material, thanks to the intuitive aspects that AR brings to such subjects as geography and astronomy.

Lily Xu, Harvard (right), moderated a panel seated by Desmond Patton, Columbia; Susan Murphy, Harvard; Erez Yoeli, MIT (right to left). Experts shared their diverse viewpoints as: a social work researcher who brings AI tools to identify and help troubled youth online, an AI researcher who likes to prove regret bounds but also embed themself with the struggling patients they try to support, and a behavioral scientist who likes to design systems with an actual incentive for people to generate the data that AI needs to work!

Harvard, MIT, and USC organizers addressed the workshop at its close, sealing the inaugural Harvard CRCS Workshop for Rising Stars in AI for Social Impact. Keep an eye out for updates from CRCS about a second edition of this workshop next year!