Michigan AI hosts symposium on AI and accessibility

Artificial intelligence enthusiasts from academia, industry, and the Michigan community attended the 5th annual Michian AI Symposium, “AI and Accessibility.” Co-chaired by Profs. Joyce Chai and Anhong Guo, the event was held on Saturday, November 5, and welcomed its participants with research talks, posters, demos, and plenty of networking opportunities.

“It’s been amazing to see all the positive energy surrounding the symposium!” says Rada Mihalcea, Director of Michigan AI and Janice M. Jenkins Professor Computer Science and Engineering. “We have seen some of the latest advances in AI featured at the symposium, especially around the area of AI and accessibility, and it was also a great opportunity to facilitate conversations between researchers in AI at the University of Michigan and the broader community of AI practitioners from Michigan and beyond.”

Focused on the theme of “AI & Accessibility”, the program featured two main sessions of faculty and invited talks, chaired by Profs. Xu Wang, Anhong Guo, Jenna Wiens, Joyce Chai, and Ben Fish, and a poster and demo session. Keynote talks were delivered by Prof. Sonia Chernova from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Prof. Jacob Wobbrock from the University of Washington. The symposium concluded with a panel  moderated by Prof. Anhong Guo with Sile O’Modhrain, Sonia Chernova, Shiwali Mohan, and Jacob Wobbrock on the panel.

“It’s really gratifying to see the overwhelming interest in AI from southeast Michigan,” says Joyce Chai, co-chair of the event and professor of CSE. “Beyond all the excitement, it also gave us a lot to think about regarding the future of AI and accessibility.”

View all talks and panels from the event in this playlist

“It was great having the event fully in person, and bringing everyone together and reconnecting,” says Anhong Guo, co-chair of the event and assistant professor of CSE. “With around 140 attendees and 50 posters and demos, it was very engaging and lively. It was a cohesive program with a great mix of AI and HCI research.”

Three outstanding demo and poster session presentations earned the event’s awards:

Best Poster Award:
MOVES: Moving Objects in Video Enable Segmentation
Richard Higgins (University of Michigan), David Fouhey (University of Michigan)

Best Demo Award:
Rubikon: A Multimodal Tutor for 3D Physical Task Learning
Haocheng Ren (University of Michigan), Muzhe Wu (University of Michigan), Gregory Croisdale (University of Michigan), Xu Wang(University of Michigan), Anhong Guo(University of Michigan)

Most Impactful for Society Award:
Image Explorer
Minyu Cai (University of Michigan), Dier Hou (University of Michigan), Anhong Guo (University of Michigan)

This event was possible thanks to the hard work of 11 student volunteers, poster session chairs Chen Liang and Martin Ma, and the event coordinator, Aurelia Bunescu.

View the full list of posters and demos presented at the symposium and a full list of speakers and abstracts on the symposium webpage. The event was sponsored by LG AI Research.