MBZUAI showcases AI research and innovation at GITEX

Abu Dhabi, UAE, October 6, 2022: Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) today announced its participation at GITEX Global 2022, which is slated to take place October 10-14 in the Dubai World Trade Center. At GITEX, the university will showcase some of its latest research and innovation in an interactive, two-story exhibit.

Visitors to the university’s exhibit will have the opportunity to discover firsthand how MBZUAI’s faculty, researchers, and students are pushing the boundaries of AI. University faculty and collaborators will deliver short, informative presentations, while faculty and students will also take part in GITEX webinars and panels.

MBZUAI President, Professor Eric Xing will deliver a keynote address Thursday, October 13 at 11:00 a.m. in Sheikh Rashid Hall as part of Ai Everything 2022.

“GITEX is an ideal platform for the university to connect with the wider public and acquaint them with AI research and its applications,” Xing said. “AI is a uniquely powerful technology that will help improve many aspects of people’s lives from healthcare and business, to education, delivery of government services, and so much more. Ultimately, we must ensure that everyone is brought along for the journey and AI literacy is one key aspect of that.”

Located in hall 8, the MBZUAI exhibit will feature a multimedia experience from Hao Li, MBZUAI associate professor of computer vision, and founder of startup Pinscreen. Li is leading the charge to develop the AI technologies that will power shopping, work, and so much more in the metaverse. Li is the director of the MBZUAI Metaverse Lab and his technologies have already contributed to Amazon and Expo 2020, among many others.

Visitors will have the opportunity to learn about innovations in development at MBZUAI stemming from student research. One such example is an application that aims to help speech-impaired people communicate and navigate their way through society. Visitors will also be able to contribute to science through an activity designed to bring them into the experience of a person with a speech impairment.

Professor Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, MBZUAI’s acting department chair of computer vision, will participate in the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Majlis webinar on the Metaverse on Monday, October 10 at 1:00 p.m.  

Other activities include workshops and large model demonstrations from members of the AI startup Petuum. Scientists at the startup contribute to and form part of the open-source AI software community known as CASL – an open toolkit for composable, automatic, and scalable learning. CASL technologies have been, in part, incubated in MBZUAI classrooms and labs, and Petuum scientists will be at the MBZUAI booth to discuss how the tech enables small-to-medium enterprises to rapidly build AI systems to scale using the community’s open-source building blocks.

This year’s GITEX Global brings together more than 4000 leaders and innovators from tech powerhouses and startups, delegates from more than 170 countries, more than 400 active tech investors, and the world’s leading professionals, educators, and companies defining the future of technology.

MBZUAI ranks 24 globally in its areas of focus — artificial intelligence, computer vision, machine learning, and natural language processing.