NYUAD and MBZUAI co-host EMNLP

New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), in partnership with MBZUAI, will host the 2022 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) from December 7 to 11. EMNLP, which held its first conference in 1996, is the 14th most cited conference in computer science as of 2021, according to Microsoft Academic.

EMNLP is a leading conference in the area of natural language processing and artificial intelligence. Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence that considers the interactions between computers and human language. The discipline helps machines process and understand human language so that they can automatically perform repetitive tasks. Everyday examples include machine translation, automatic summarization, and automatic spelling correction.

The local organizing committee is co-chaired by NYUAD Professor and Program Head of Computer Science, Nizar Habash, and MBZUAI President, Professor Eric Xing.

Along with the conference of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), EMNLP is one of the two primary high-impact conferences for natural language processing research. EMNLP is organized by the ACL special interest group on linguistic data (SIGDAT).

“Natural language processing research is a vital part of the ecosystem here in the UAE, which will help fuel technological innovation,” Xing said. “As the burgeoning epicenter of NLP research in the Middle East, we at MBZUAI anticipate having a major impact given our capability and our depth of talent, and co-hosting an event of this caliber underscores the importance of our contribution alongside our colleagues at NYUAD.”

MBZUAI Associate Provost for Academic and Student Affairs and Professor of NLP Tim Baldwin chairs the university’s Natural Language Processing Department. The department is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with a deep commitment to developing NLP datasets and methods to help solve critical social problems and achieve efficiency and productivity gains. Alongside his duties at MBZUAI, Baldwin is also the 2022 President of ACL.

EMNLP 2022 will include six tutorials and 22 workshops, including the Seventh Workshop on Arabic Natural Language Processing, the 13th International Workshop on Health Text Mining and Information Analysis, as well as the Fourth Workshop on Financial Technology and Natural Language Processing. Additionally, EMNLP 2022 will have two co-located conferences on Machine Translation and Computational Natural Language Learning.

“Arabic poses a lot of challenges to Natural Language Processing (NLP), and so it is very encouraging to see that research in the region has been on the rise in the last decade,” Habash said. “This conference provides a unique opportunity for the UAE, and the Arab World, to showcase the vital work we have done in this field; motivate local youth to engage in this science as well as interact with and attract global talent; and continue to explore the endless possibilities of this technology.”

The conference has secured sponsorship from major international companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Baidu and Microsoft. EMNLP 2022 also received generous support from the Abu Dhabi Convention and Exhibition Bureau.

In addition to leveraging Abu Dhabi’s strong MICE infrastructure and capabilities, the Conference has also received additional support from the Abu Dhabi Convention and Exhibition Bureau (ADCEB), part of the Department of Tourism and Culture – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi).

ADCEB offered Advantage Abu Dhabi 2.0, an enhanced subvention scheme that empowers event organizers with an array of support throughout the event planning cycle, including financial assistance and destination-driven value-adds.

“We are delighted to extend our support to EMNLP 2022 through the Advantage Abu Dhabi 2.0 programme,” Director of the Abu Dhabi Convention & Exhibition Bureau at DCT Abu Dhabi Mubarak Al Shamisi said. “One of our objectives when creating the programme was to partner with innovative associations undertaking ground-breaking, future-forward research and development to host events that engage and enrich our city’s social and economic development. With the insights and enhancements of natural language processing and artificial intelligence being shared at EMNLP 2022, this will certainly contribute to growing Abu Dhabi’s knowledge ecosystem and highlight the destination’s attractiveness to host specialised scientific conferences. We look forward to welcoming conference speakers and participants to Abu Dhabi, and we hope that they discover the diverse range of inspiring, restoring and exciting experiences offered by our incredible destination.”