A presentation I made at the recent University-Industry Interaction Conference in Dublin that talks about our ADAPT Centre initiative of supporting the Machine Learning Dublin meetup community event for AI, Machine Learning and Deep learning. It's based on a longer paper I submitted to the conference. Here are the key observations: Meetup events are bottom-up, informal, community forums They offer: Novel channels for university research outputs dissemination Opportunities for networking Knowledge sharing Knowledge and expertise development Commercial and collaboration opportunities Recruitment opportunities https://www.meetup.com/Machine-Learning-Dublin/ https://www.adaptcentre.ie/

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Engaging community interest in
science
Declan McKibben
Head of Design & Innovation,
ADAPT Centre (for Digital Content Technology)
#MLDublin

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About ADAPT
SFI funded research centre, lead by Trinity College Dublin and including
researchers from DCU, DIT and UCD
300 Academics, Researchers & Postgraduate Students
€ 70 M Investment from Irish Government, Industry & Competitive Research
Funding (EU)

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ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology Vision
To revolutionise the way people can
seamlessly
Interact with digital content, systems
and each other
Enabling users to achieve
unprecedented levels of access and
efficiency

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ADAPT Working with Industry
Connects with Industry via the Spokes
Programme
We apply existing research and know-how to
industry use cases
We’re Agile, aiming to deliver short-term impact
6 Active projects, 12 over the past year

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Machine Learning Dublin Meetup objectives
To create an event that will encourage and foster the community’s interest in machine learning;
deepening and extending interest in machine learning for existing practitioners and encouraging
novices’ interest in it.
To have ADAPT Centre take a central role in supporting and growing that community and
contribute to its prestige as a research centre.
To be the “go-to” event for anyone interested in machine learning, text analytics, natural language
processing, computer vision, etc. in Dublin, Ireland
To invite, curate and disseminate information and ideas (relating to machine learning).

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Meetup started in January 2016
Monthly event
Normally sponsored/hosted
Very popular, almost viral
Huge engagement from industry
for attendance and presenting.
2,359
members
14 events
1,475
a3endees
16 industry
26 university
presenters
ADAPT and the Machine Learning Meetup

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Industry engagement
Support readily available
Hosting, speakers
Recruitment, positioning

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What happens at a meetup
Food
Presentations
Networking

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18:50
19:15
19:35
Ana Peleteiro Ramallo | Data Scientist, Zalando
An introduction to RNNs, and why they are particularly useful for NLP problems.
Including some use examples, as well as some up-skilling tips
#MLDublin
A look at acoustic modelling techniques used in speech recognition and how the
adoption of deep neural networks have led to a breakthrough in accuracy results. New
challenges faced by speech recognition for kids and how deep neural networks can be
used to maintain high accuracy in these new conditions.
Amelia Kelly | Director of Speech Technologies, Soapbox Labs
The diachronic analysis of language studies the language evolution over time. An
introduce some methods for the diachronic analysis that rely on Distributional Semantic
Models built over Google Ngram. Preliminary results obtained for the Italian language
and future work and challenges of this kind of analysis.
Annalina Caputo | Research Fellow, ADAPT Centre

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Attendees and presenters
Sponsors get opportunities to recruit
and promote their “AI” brand
Amelia Kelly, Soapbox Labs
Ana Peleteiro Ramallo, Zalando

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Attendees and presenters
Dissemination of research outputs
Knowledge sharing
Networking
Amelia Kelly
Ana Peleteiro Ramallo
Arturo Calvo, Accenture

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In Summary
Meetup events are bottom-up, informal, community forums
They offer:
• Novel channels for university research outputs dissemination
• Opportunities for networking
• Knowledge sharing
• Knowledge and expertise development
• Commercial and collaboration opportunities
• Recruitment opportunities