The Sixth Symposium of NJAA - 2020

Use of Artificial Intelligence for National Prosperity

The Sixth Symposium of Nepal JSPS Alumni Association (NJAA) was successfully held on Sunday November 1, 2020 through online Zoom platform.

Some Photos of the Symposium

Remarks by Ms. Yumiko Asakuma, Chief Representative of JICA Nepal Office

Remarks by Mr. Yuzo Yoshioka, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Japan in Nepal

Remarks by Er. Ganesh Shah, Former Minister of Science and Technology

Inaugural remarks by the Chief Guest, Dr. Sunil Babu Shrestha, Vice Chancellor of Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST)

Keynote Speech by Prof. Dr. Yukio Ohsawa, Professor of Systems Innovation in the School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo

Special Presentation by Prof. Dr. Shashidhar Ram Joshi, Professor and Dean, Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University

Special Remarks by Dr. Rosha Pokharel, Lead Data Scientist at IBM-AI Applications, USA

Remarks and JSPS Guidance presentation by Prof. Dr. Yoshio Otani, Director of JSPS Bangkok Office

Sixth Symposium

Prof. Dr. Yukio Ohsawa is a Professor of Systems Innovation in the School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo. He received BE, ME, and PhD from the School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo (1995). Then worked for the School of Engineering Science at Osaka University (research associate, 1995-1999), Graduate School of Business Sciences in University of Tsukuba (associate professor, 1999-2005), and moved back to The Univ. of Tokyo. He started researches from non-linear optics, and, via artificial intelligence, created a new domain chance discovery meaning to discover events of significant impact on decision making, since the year 2000. About chance discovery he gave keynote talks in conferences such as International Symposium on Knowledge and Systems Sciences, Intl Conf. on Rough Sets and Fuzzy Sets, Joint Conf. on Information Sciences, Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems, etc. Chance discovery came to be embodied as innovators' marketplace, a methodology for innovation borrowing principles of the dynamics of markets. Then he, when biking from his job in a business school, invented the basic idea of Data Jackets. Since then, he is introducing the method presented in this book to sciences, educations, and businesses. His original concepts and technologies have been published as books and monographs from global publishers such as Springer Verlag, Taylor & Francis, etc. Two most important books among them are, "Chance Discovery" (2003 Springer, foreword given by Eric von Hippel), "Innovators' Marketplace: Using Games to Activate and Train Innovators" (2012 Springer, foreword given by Larry Leifer). He edited special issues as guest editors for journals such as Information Sciences (2009), New Generation Computing (2003), Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management (2002), etc. And in the editorial boards of several journals. As a previous program chair of the Annual Conference of The Japanese Society on Artificial Intelligence, he came to be the first to change this domestic conference into an international conference from June 2019.

Abstract of his Keynote Speech on Discovery beyond Learning as an Idea from Data Jackets:

The recent endeavors of researchers in artificial intelligence for explainable machine learning imply users still suffer the difficulty in understanding what/how the machine learned. The tools with AI for making the real world dealable may rather make things unclear for humans, and the decisions of humans nowadays may be rather influenced by incomprehensible logic. Data Jackets are human-made metadata for each dataset, reflecting peoples' subjective or potential interests. Via visualizing relevances between DJs, participants in the market of data think and talk about why and how they should combine the corresponding datasets. Even if the owners of data may hesitate to open their data to the public, they can present the DJs in the data marketplace that is a platform for data-driven innovations. In this market, the participants communicate to find ideas to combine/use data and find future collaborators. Furthermore, explicitly or implicitly required data can be searched by use of tools such as DJ Store and Variable Quest, created on DJs, which enabled analogical inventions of data analysis methods. As a result, the innovators' marketplace on DJs turned out to be the birthplace of fruits in business and science. On the other hand, an important role of AI is to explain events and changes -- which may affect a human's life and why that happened and affects. Here, the speaker shows the requirements of participants so far in the data marketplace organized using Data Jackets, for a computational intelligence to explain changes in the real world. This explanation goes quite beyond the sheer learning from available data, and we should run toward the development of methods for human-machine interaction to reach the latent causalities involving events out of available or in unreachable data.

Prof. Dr. Shashidhar Ram Joshi is the Dean and Professor of the Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, Nepal. He has been working in the Institute of Engineering since 1985. He received BE in Electrical Engineering, First class first with gold medal from REC Surat (Now NIT Surat), India, 1984; MSc Engg in Electrical Engineering, University of Calgary, Canada, 1992; and Ph.D. in Electronics and Computer Engineering, Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, Nepal (2007) with the Ph.D. research works done in Japan, Norway, and Nepal. He is the member of Subject Committee and Faculty Boards of different Universities in Nepal. He has given many guest lectures in Japan, Korea, Norway, etc. He has been a Research Fellow in Osaka Sangyo University, Japan for one year and Visiting Professor in South Asian University (SAARC University), India for one year. He has been member of the Selection Committee of the South Asian University for four times. He has also worked as a Computer Consultant in several International Agencies, Governmental and Non-Governmental sectors. He has supervised more than 50 Masters Theses and several Ph.D.s. He has published several papers in International and National Journals. His main research is on: Image Processing, Pattern Recognition, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Particle Tracking Velocimetry.

Abstract of his Special Presentation on "Application of artificial intelligence in the development of Nepal with Japanese collaboration":

Nobody can deny the socio-economic impact of artificial intelligence in the modern world. Few aspects in the context of Nepal were discussed. The application of artificial intelligence in the field of agriculture is in study phase. Some attempts are tried and actually they are in primitive stages. Some applications of artificial intelligence are successful in the fields of medical sciences. Researchers have applied artificial intelligence in the identification of ophthalmic diseases like diabetic retinopathy. Few works have also been done in the analysis of ultra sound images and it will be discussed in detail in the presentation. Some researchers have also tried to use artificial intelligence in the disaster managements. One of the significant applications of artificial intelligence is in robotics. Nepalese teams have developed waiter robots for restaurant use and few of them are even exported to other countries. Details were demonstrated in the presentation.

Prof. Dr. Yoshio Otani is the Director of JSPS Bangkok Office since July 1, 2020. He is also a Professor Emeritus of Kanazawa University. Prior to this, he was Vice President of Kanazawa University in charge of International Affairs and promoted student/researcher exchange programs mainly with Thailand, Russia, China, and South Korea as part of SGU (Top Global University Project) and Inter-University Exchange Project.

He gave the JSPS Guidance presentation, which is helpful to anyone who is interested to study or do research in Japan.

Presentation Videos of Technical Session

Yukio_Ohsawa.mp4

Keynote Presentation by Prof. Dr. Yukio Ohsawa

Shashidhar_Ram_Joshi.mp4

Special Presentation by Prof. Dr. Shashidhar Ram Joshi

Rosha_Pokharel.mp4

Special Remarks by Dr. Rosha Pokharel

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