1. UofSC AI Institute for world-class research
excellence and regional economic impact:
Why? What? How?
Amit Sheth
LexisNexis Ohio Eminent Scholar & Exec. Director,
The Ohio Center of Excellence in Knowledge-enabled Computing
& BioHealth Innovations (Kno.e.sis)
Wright State, USA
Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
Photographs by Unsplash1

2. 2

3. Credit: Looi Consulting (http://www.looiconsulting.com/home/enterprise-big-data/)
Of all the data generated, which data is relevant, and why? Which data to analyze? Which data
can offer insight? Who cares for what data? How to get attention of a human decision maker?
What we need is intelligent processing to get actionable information
(i.e., smart data) – hence, AI/Machine Intelligence.
As the big data challenge grows, AI becomes more important.
The Big Data Challenge
Text (Web/Social)
Images, Video
IoT
Seq

4. “
◆ Every company now is an AI company. The
industrial companies are changing, the supply
chain...every single sector, it’s not only tech.
Steven Pagliuca (CEO of Bain Capital) @ WEF2019
5

5. ~1:1 correspondence between industry sectors
and focus areas of UofSC colleges 6

6. National Research Investment in AI 7
Increases in federal funding investments
(DARPA $2B, NSF, etc)

7. “
◆ While US is ahead in AI research,
China is significantly ahead in AI
development and monetization
Kai-Fu Lee, CEO of Sinovation Ventures, Author of “AI Superpowers” Former
President of Google-China
8

8. 9

9. Unique Opportunity @ UofSC 10
• AI research interest across the campus covering virtually
all its colleges, and industry across the state
• AI is exceptionally relevant to SC’s priorities: rural health,
transformation, education, smart manufacturing, life science
• Opportunity for regional leadership: lack of campus-wide
institute at most major players: mostly bottom up efforts at
GaTech, Duke, UNC, NCSU, UF, Clemson,…
• Dean’s leadership & university-level commitment +
faculty interest => recipe for success

10. How?
11

11. “
EDUCATION RESEARCH &
INNOVATIONS
TECH DEV & REAL
WORLD APPLICATIONS
● Tech Transfer
● Incubation
● Commercialization
● Economic &
Societal Impact

12. AI Institute: Baseline
13
• Executive director
• New 6-8 CEC faculty hires in AI at all ranks – mix of established areas
(Machine Learning/Deep Learning, NLP) and emerging areas
(conversational AI, multimodal/vision, robotics and neurocomputing/ brain
inspired computing); out of the box: design and interfaces
• Existing CEC faculty with AI related and complementary expertise
• New hires with joint appointment with most colleges
• Existing interdisciplinary faculty with synergy
• Staff
References: UMIACS-UMD, TDAI-OSU, USC-ISI
Timeline: 3 year to critical mass, 5 year to full scope, 8 years to deliver
on all proposed measures/metrics

13. Foundational Research View
14

14. Visions & Themes (2008-2018)
01
Computing for
Human Experience 02 Physical-Cyber-Social
Big & Smart Data
03
Semantic,
Cognitive and
Perceptual
Computing
04
Personalized digital
health/connected
health and medicine,
Epidemiology,
public/community
health, ….
Looking forward: Contextualized & Personalized AI
15

15. ● The astounding bandwidth of your
senses is 11 million bits of information
every second.
● In conscious activities like reading, the
human brain distills approximately 40
bits of information per second.
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/mobile-white-paper-c11-520862.html
Mind, Brain and Machine:
What if we could automate such interpretation of data?
… and does it efficiently and at scale

16. Applied Research/
Technology Perspective
17

17. LEAD and ADAPT 18
Knowledge-infused Learning
Explainable AI
Chatbots & integration with Robots
(with special emphasis on
health/social good/education)
Augmented Personalized Health,
Medical Explainability (M,N)
Surveillance Capitalism (Business & Law)
Disinformation, Radicalization (I&C)
Wellness, Nutrition, Policy (Health)
AI/intelligent Grading (Education)

18. Exceptional Synergy at UofSC:
Key collaborators and Topics Identified
◆ Medicine
◆ Nursing
◆ Social Work
◆ Public Health
◆ Law
◆ Education
◆ Information &
Communication
◆ Business
19

19. Clinical Research
Biomedical Research
Materials Engineering
Cognitive Science
Computer Sc. & Engineering
AI (ML, NLP, KR/SW), IR, DM, BI, CC, Vis, …
Biomed Industrial
HF Engineering
Epidemiology
Clinical Psych
Biological Sc. & Bio Stats
Numerous orgs in
humanitarian and crisis space
20
Kno.e.sis’ Current Collaborations

20. Types of Activities & Projects (to borrow/adapt)
A key reason for Kno.e.sis' success is its unique work culture involving teamwork to
solve complex problems. Practically all our work involves real world
challenges, real-world data, interdisciplinary collaborators, path-
breaking research to solve the real-world challenges, real-world
deployments, real world use, and measurable real world impact.
These are demonstrable in diverse forms such as policy impact (e.g., FDA advisory),
operational real-time use of our tools to save lives during disasters, open source
data and tools, and licensing/tech transfer and commercialization of our technology
used to launch a local startup.
21

21. External Funding model
• Emphasis on medium & large ($1M+) team
oriented and interdisciplinary projects
• Diverse sources: NIH, NSF, DoD, State, Industry

22. DoD & Industry
• Metabolomics &
Proteomics
• Medical Info Decisions
• Human Detection
on Synthetic FMV
• Sensor & Information
• Material Genomics
• Cardiology Semantic
Analysis
NIH
• kHealth - Asthma
• eDrug Trends
• Depression on Social Media
• Drug Abuse Early Warning
NSF
• Harassment on Social Media
• Citizen & Physical Sensing
• Twitris - Collective Intelligence
• Aerial Surveillance
• Visual Experience
• Web Robot Traffic
Diversified Funding (a model to emulate/adapt)
23

23. Infrastructure
Soft: Staff
Physical: Space, Computing
24

24. 25

25. 26

26. Economic Development
Entrepreneurship
Startup Ecosystem
27

28. NSF IIS-0842129
III-SGER: Spatio-Temporal-
Thematic Queries of Semantic
Web Data: a Study of
Expressivity and Efficiency
$163,800, 09/2008-08/2011
IIS-1143717
III: EAGER - Expressive Scalable
Querying over Integrated
Linked Open Data
$141,828, 09/2011-08/2013
NSF IIS-1111182 [Main Research Funding]
SoCS: Collaborative Research:
Social Media Enhanced
Organizational Sensemaking
in Emergency Response
$518,408, 09/2011-08/2015
IIS-1343041
I-Corps: Towards Commercialization
of Twitris - A System for Collective Intelligence
$50,000, 08/2013 - 01/2014
Research Funding to Economic Dev & Jobs: an Example
IIP-1542911 [This project]
PFI: AIR-TT: Market-driven
Innovations
and Scaling up of Twitris - A
System for Collective Social
Intelligence
$200,000 (+ $12,000 REU)
09/01/2015 - 08/30/2017
Trial license with iKove Venture
Partners and the launch of
Cognovi Labs in Feb 2016.
Exclusive license Oct 2016.
>$3m in funding.
$492,500 for cluster/private cloud from AFOSR that supports scalable computing for Twitris.
Additional $6, research funds from AFRL, NIH for applications and application supported development.
NIH R01 DA039454-01
Trending: Social Media Analysis to Monitor
Cannabis and Synthetic Cannabinoid Use
(eDrugTrends)
Total: $1,689,019: 08/2014 – 08/2017
Development &
Applications
29
Foundational/
Basic Research Commercialization

29. What?
30

30. Student Success: An Important Performance Measure

31. 32

32. Work Culture
Social Skills, Teamwork, Communications, Networking,
Mentoring, Diversity, Ethics, Respect,
Engagement, Friendship and Fun, Alumni
33

33. Measure & Metrics
Outcomes & Expectations

34. Research
35
• Recognized as one of the top centers in its subject area in
Southeast US, along with GaTech, Duke, UNC, NCSU, and UVA
• Recruit exceptional faculty at all ranks
• Success in winning team-oriented, interdisciplinary, and multi-
institutional grants (emphasis on > $1million)
• Per-capita research activity, citations/impact, keynotes/invited
seminars, PhD students, postdocs, and funding comparable to
the top 20 programs; Improve on Carnegie R1 criteria: PhDs
graduated, postdocs, funding per faculty
• Create a vibrant seminar series involving visits by leaders and
robust campus-wide participation; National media coverage

35. Leadership model to execute
◆ PostDoc trained to succeed -
won $500K K01, hired as TT
◆ Hired faculty who is the 2nd
most cited in the University
(h-index = 45)
◆ Raise the Productivity of
Existing Faculty
Former UGA colleague
Current colleague

36. Academic
37
• Graduates able to successfully compete with counterparts from the top
20 programs for the most attractive academic and industry research
positions. Also provide exceptional internship and placements options
for graduate students.
• Develop joint graduate degree programs with tier 1 international
universities (e.g., IITs/IIITs/NITs/BITS in India), work with departments
to increase quality of incoming (funded & full tuition paying) graduate
students
• Develop specialized programs (e.g., big and smart data, machine
intelligence, human-centered AI), and assess the possibility of degree
certificate in 2-3 years. (e.g., https://www.cc.gatech.edu/content/intelligence). [secondary]

37. Economic Development
38
• Engage industry in the state and conduct industry-funded
projects. Seek industry funded collaboration spaces and labs.
• Create a model for IP creating and successfully license IP
leading to new products or startups. Engage with regional
investors that support startup formation. Demonstrate faculty
generated IP monetization.
• Support SBIR and STTR for local industry.

38. 39Thank You!