Event type: Lectures

Powered by LARSyS, INESC ID and CMU Portugal with Yvonne Rogers from the University College London and Jodi Forlizzi from Carnegie Mellon University.

Entrance is free. In case of doubt please contact: info@cmuportugal.org

Abstract

User-centered design served the digital industry well. UCD is the process of designing digital products and services focusing on the users and their needs in each phase of the iterative design process. However, in the experience economy we are no longer designing user experiences (UX) with one digital artifact for one person, we are designing complex socio-technical interactions which form ecologies of stakeholders, products, services and platforms. We need to move beyond UCD and UX to respond to the new economic and social challenges and continue to design digital ecosystems that benefit the world. This requires integrating other discipliner and perspectives which are clearly reflected in this IST Distinguished Lecture: “Beyond User Centered Design”. We bring together two leaders in the field of HCI which represent a new generation of interdisciplinary research and education. A designer (Jodi Forlizi) and a Psychologist (Yvonne Rogers), two brilliant women that lead the top HCI departments in the world of Computer Science.

Agenda

17:00 I “Beyond GUIs: The Next Generation of Voice-Assisted Interactions”
Yvonne Rogers, University College London

17:30 I “Beyond User Centered Design AND Design Thinking”
Jodi Forlizzi, Carnegie Mellon University

18:00 I Discussion (30m)
Moderator: Ana Paiva, INESC ID

Yvonne Rogers I Brief Biography

Yvonne Rogers is the director of the Interaction Centre at UCL (UCLIC), and a deputy head of the Computer Science department. She is interested in how technology transforms what it means to be human. Much of her work is situated in the wild – concerned with informing, building and evaluating novel user experiences through creating and assembling a diversity of technologies (e.g. tangibles, AR, IoT) that augment everyday, learning, community engagement and collaborative work activities. She has been instrumental in promulgating new theories (e.g., external cognition), alternative methodologies (e.g., in the wild studies) and far-reaching research agendas (e.g., “Being Human: HCI in 2020” manifesto), and has pioneered an approach to innovation and ubiquitous learning. She has also published over 300 articles, including two monographs “HCI Theory: Classical, Modern and Contemporary” and “Research in the Wild”. She is a fellow of the ACM, BCS and the ACM CHI Academy. The 5th edition of her co-authored textbook (with Helen Sharp and Jenny Preece) on Interaction Design has just been published.

Jodi Forlizzi  I Brief Biography

Jodi Forlizzi is the Geschke Director and a Professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She is responsible for establishing design research as a legitimate form of research in HCI that is different from, but equally as important as, scientific and human science research. For the past 20 years, Jodi has advocated for design research in all forms, mentoring peers, colleagues, and students in its structure and execution, and today it is an important part of the CHI community.

Jodi’s current research interests include: designing educational games that are engaging and effective, designing robots, AVs, and other technology services that use AI and ML to adapt to people’s needs, and designing for healthcare. Jodi is a member of the ACM CHI Academy and has been honored by the Walter Reed Army Medical Center for excellence in HRI design research. Jodi has consulted with Disney and General Motors to create innovative product-service systems.

Promoted by: Gender Balance Group of INESC TEC, with the support of CMU Portugal Program

Entrance is free but registration is mandatory HERE until October, 23

In case of doubt please contact: gtig@inesctec.pt

Preliminary Agenda

10:30 am – Welcome words
10:40 am – Invited Talk, Lenore Blum, Carnegie Mellon University
1:30 am – Open discussion
12:30 pm – End of session

Abstract

Working towards gender balance in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) is becoming critical for many organizations since it helps to foster diversity and attract and develop talent. This talk aims to raise awareness for gender balance, especially in the context of R&D and Higher Education Institutions. Gender balance may be fostered in several stages of the career and within several organizational processes, such as recruitment, career development, or career progression. Understanding the causes of existing issues and building on experience of other organizations will allow structuring a better roadmap towards gender balance.

Short bio

Lenore Blum (Ph.D., MIT) is Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus, at Carnegie Mellon, where she was founding director of Project Olympus, faculty director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, and held the inaugural Deans’ Chair in Technology Entrepreneurship. Project Olympus is a good example of her determination to make a real difference in the academic community and the world beyond. Olympus has two main aims: to bridge the gap between cutting-edge university research/innovation and economy-promoting commercialization for the benefit of our communities and creating a climate, culture and community to enable talent and ideas to grow in the region.  Lenore is internationally recognized for her work in increasing the participation of girls and women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. She was a founder of the Association for Women in Mathematics and the Expanding Your Horizons Network for middle and high school girls. At Carnegie Mellon she founded the Women@SCS program. In 2004 she received the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. In 2009 she received the Carnegie Science Catalyst Award recognizing her work with Project Olympus targeting high-tech talent to promote economic growth in the Pittsburgh region and for increasing the participation of women in computer science. Currently, women comprise 50% of the undergraduate computer science majors at Carnegie Mellon, more than twice the national average. Her research, founding a theory of computation and complexity over continuous domains, forms a theoretical basis for scientific computation. On the eve of Alan Turing’s 100th birthday in June 2012, she was plenary speaker at the Turing Centenary Celebration at the University of Cambridge, England. Her current research, on developing a computer architecture for a conscious AI inspired both by Alan Turing and recent developments in cognitive neuroscience, is joint with her husband Manuel Blum and son Avrim Blum.

For more information please contact

Sandra Pinto
Communication Service (INESC TEC)
T +351 222094214
eventos@inesctec.pt

Jaime Bonnin Roca , a CMU Portugal programme Alumnus in Engineering and Public Policy who graduated in 2017, will give a Seminar at IN+ Center, from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) entitled “Technology cost drivers for a potential transition to decentralized manufacturing”, on 18th October 2019, at 11 a.m.

Roca is currently an Assistant Professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. He was recently interviewed on our website, you can read the full article here: https://cmuportugal.org/media/cmu-portugal-inside-story-jaime-roca/

ABSTRACT:

Thanks to major advances in cognitive neuroscience, the world is on the brink of a scientific understanding of how the brain achieves consciousness.  In 1988, cognitive neuroscientist Bernard Baars’ proposed a Global Workspace Model (GWM) of the brain, sketched its computer architecture, and outlined its implications for understanding consciousness. In 1990, the invention of fMRI enabled us to witness brain functioning in real time.  As a consequence, the quest to understand consciousness, once the purview of philosophers and theologians, is now actively pursued also by scientists and mathematicians.

This talk discusses consciousness from the perspective of theoretical computer science. Its major contribution lies in the precise formal definition of a Conscious Turing Machine (CTM), also called Conscious AI. The CTM is defined in the spirit of Alan Turing’s simple yet powerful definition of a computing machine, the Turing Machine (TM), as a way to formalize rigorously, explicitly, mathematically and simply Baars’ GWM.

The reasonableness of definitions of consciousness in the CTM can be judged by how well its concepts agree with the commonly agreed-upon intuitive concepts of human consciousness.

This is joint work of  Manuel, Lenore and Avrim Blum.

Registration is free. 

Lenore Blum (Ph.D., MIT) is Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus, at Carnegie Mellon, where she was founding director of Project Olympus, faculty director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, and held the inaugural Deans’ Chair in Technology Entrepreneurship. Project Olympus is a good example of her determination to make a real difference in the academic community and the world beyond. Olympus has two main aims: to bridge the gap between cutting-edge university research/innovation and economy-promoting commercialization for the benefit of our communities and creating a climate, culture and community to enable talent and ideas to grow in the region.  Lenore is internationally recognized for her work in increasing the participation of girls and women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. She was a founder of the Association for Women in Mathematics and the Expanding Your Horizons Network for middle and high school girls. At Carnegie Mellon she founded the Women@SCS program. In 2004 she received the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. In 2009 she received the Carnegie Science Catalyst Award recognizing her work with Project Olympus targeting high-tech talent to promote economic growth in the Pittsburgh region and for increasing the participation of women in computer science. Currently, women comprise 50% of the undergraduate computer science majors at Carnegie Mellon, more than twice the national average. Her research, founding a theory of computation and complexity over continuous domains, forms a theoretical basis for scientific computation. On the eve of Alan Turing’s 100th birthday in June 2012, she was plenary speaker at the Turing Centenary Celebration at the University of Cambridge, England. Her current research, on developing a computer architecture for a conscious AI inspired both by Alan Turing and recent developments in cognitive neuroscience, is joint with her husband Manuel Blum and son Avrim Blum.

Manuel Blum , the Bruce Nelson University Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus, at Carnegie Mellon University, is a pioneer in the field of theoretical computer science and the winner of the 1995 Turing Award in recognition of his contributions to the foundations of computational complexity theory and its applications to cryptography and program checking, a mathematical approach to writing programs that check their work. He was born in Caracas, Venezuela, where his parents settled after fleeing Europe in the 1930s and came to the United States in the mid-1950s to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While studying electrical engineering, he pursued his desire to understand thinking and brains by working in the neurophysiology laboratory of Dr. Warren S. McCulloch and Walter Pitts, then concentrated on mathematical logic and recursion theory for the insight it gave him on brains and thinking. He did his doctoral work under the supervision of Artificial Intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky and earned a Ph.D. from MIT in mathematics in 1964. Blum began his teaching career at MIT as an assistant professor of mathematics and, in 1968, joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley. He joined the Carnegie Mellon faculty in 2001. Blum has supervised the theses of 35 doctoral students who now pepper almost every major computer science department in the country. The many ground-breaking areas of theoretical computer science chartered by his academic descendants are legend.

 

ABSTRACT:

Thanks to major advances in cognitive neuroscience, the world is on the brink of a scientific understanding of how the brain achieves consciousness.  In 1988, cognitive neuroscientist Bernard Baars’ proposed a Global Workspace Model (GWM) of the brain, sketched its computer architecture, and outlined its implications for understanding consciousness. In 1990, the invention of fMRI enabled us to witness brain functioning in real time.  As a consequence, the quest to understand consciousness, once the purview of philosophers and theologians, is now actively pursued also by scientists and mathematicians.

This talk discusses consciousness from the perspective of theoretical computer science. Its major contribution lies in the precise formal definition of a Conscious Turing Machine (CTM), also called Conscious AI. The CTM is defined in the spirit of Alan Turing’s simple yet powerful definition of a computing machine, the Turing Machine (TM), as a way to formalize rigorously, explicitly, mathematically and simply Baars’ GWM.

The reasonableness of definitions of consciousness in the CTM can be judged by how well its concepts agree with the commonly agreed-upon intuitive concepts of human consciousness.

This is joint work of  Manuel, Lenore and Avrim Blum.

Registration is free. 

Lenore Blum (Ph.D., MIT) is Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus, at Carnegie Mellon, where she was founding director of Project Olympus, faculty director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, and held the inaugural Deans’ Chair in Technology Entrepreneurship. Project Olympus is a good example of her determination to make a real difference in the academic community and the world beyond. Olympus has two main aims: to bridge the gap between cutting-edge university research/innovation and economy-promoting commercialization for the benefit of our communities and creating a climate, culture and community to enable talent and ideas to grow in the region.  Lenore is internationally recognized for her work in increasing the participation of girls and women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. She was a founder of the Association for Women in Mathematics and the Expanding Your Horizons Network for middle and high school girls. At Carnegie Mellon she founded the Women@SCS program. In 2004 she received the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. In 2009 she received the Carnegie Science Catalyst Award recognizing her work with Project Olympus targeting high-tech talent to promote economic growth in the Pittsburgh region and for increasing the participation of women in computer science. Currently, women comprise 50% of the undergraduate computer science majors at Carnegie Mellon, more than twice the national average. Her research, founding a theory of computation and complexity over continuous domains, forms a theoretical basis for scientific computation. On the eve of Alan Turing’s 100th birthday in June 2012, she was plenary speaker at the Turing Centenary Celebration at the University of Cambridge, England. Her current research, on developing a computer architecture for a conscious AI inspired both by Alan Turing and recent developments in cognitive neuroscience, is joint with her husband Manuel Blum and son Avrim Blum.

Manuel Blum , the Bruce Nelson University Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus, at Carnegie Mellon University, is a pioneer in the field of theoretical computer science and the winner of the 1995 Turing Award in recognition of his contributions to the foundations of computational complexity theory and its applications to cryptography and program checking, a mathematical approach to writing programs that check their work. He was born in Caracas, Venezuela, where his parents settled after fleeing Europe in the 1930s and came to the United States in the mid-1950s to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While studying electrical engineering, he pursued his desire to understand thinking and brains by working in the neurophysiology laboratory of Dr. Warren S. McCulloch and Walter Pitts, then concentrated on mathematical logic and recursion theory for the insight it gave him on brains and thinking. He did his doctoral work under the supervision of Artificial Intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky and earned a Ph.D. from MIT in mathematics in 1964. Blum began his teaching career at MIT as an assistant professor of mathematics and, in 1968, joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley. He joined the Carnegie Mellon faculty in 2001. Blum has supervised the theses of 35 doctoral students who now pepper almost every major computer science department in the country. The many ground-breaking areas of theoretical computer science chartered by his academic descendants are legend.