RAS Technical Education Program Announced

IEEE-RAS Spring School on "Social and Artificial Intelligence for User-Friendly Robots" SoAIR2019
17-24 March 2019, Shonan Village, Japan
Application Deadline: 20 December 2018

Aim and Scope

Autonomous and intelligent systems are progressively moving into spaces, which have previously been predominantly shaped by human agency. Unlike in the past where machines obediently served their human operators, machines now increasingly act without the intervention of a human. Artificial intelligence is meeting new challenges in the world, though human-like intelligence may still be a distant goal. Robots in factories are coming out of their cages. Autonomous cars are being tested on streets with regular human-driven cars. The private household is changing with the appearance of not only robotic vacuum cleaners, but also with the first-generation of social robots and smart devices. The challenges that face both the robotics and artificial intelligence communities are how the necessary intelligence for such new environments can be created as well as how to make artificial agents capable of not only solving tasks at hand but also considering social environments around them during interaction with human users so as to behave appropriately. Within the school, we plan to address the tension created by the balance between task-specific artificial intelligence and the demands of sociability required to function effectively in human-centered environments.

** This spring school is a Technical Education Program (TEP) endorsed and supported by IEEE-RAS.

** The school aims at bridging the gap between social and cognitive Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and their applications in social robotics and Autonomous Vehicles (AV) through high level talks and hands-on workshops (the program will be announced soon).

Keynote Speakers
(More Speakers in HRI, AI, and Autonomous Vehicles will join the list soon)

Jun Tani – Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), Japan
Daniele Magazzeni – King's College London, UK
Yukie Nagai – National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Japan
Tetsuya Ogata – Waseda University, Japan
Maya Cakmak – University of Washington, USA
Mohamed Chetouani – University of Pierre and Marie Curie (UPMC), France
Agnieszka Wykowska – Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Italy
Tetsunari Inamura – National Institute of Informatics (NII), Japan
Amit Kumar Pandey – SoftBank (Aldebaran) Robotics, France
Francesco Maurelli – Jacobs University, Germany (A special talk about preparing funding proposals)

Application Submission

The applications must include the following files (combined into one file). No other documents would be necessary (More information is available on the school's webpage).
1. Curriculum vitae: A two pages or less of CV detailing relevant aspects of the candidate's academic career that demonstrates her/his relevance to the school theme.
2. Research abstract: A 200 word research abstract that the candidate intends to present during the school.
3. Letter of recommendation: A short letter from the academic advisor or the employer of the candidate supporting her/his application.

Please use the following EasyChair web link:  Application Submission.

Important Dates

Application submission: 20-December 2018
Notification of acceptance: 28-December 2018
Spring School: 17-24 March 2019

Organizers

Amir Aly – Ritsumeikan University – Japan
Franziska Kirstein – Blue Ocean Robotics, Denmark
Shashank Pathak – Visteon Corporation, Germany