Three Imperial researchers are travelling to South Africa to take part in the first ever Deep Learning Indaba.

An indaba is a Zulu word for a gathering or meeting. These meetings are held throughout southern Africa and serve several functions: to listen and share news of members of the community, to discuss common interests and issues facing the community, and to give advice and coach others.

At the Deep Learning Indaba 2017, students in South Africa and further afield will be coming together to listen and share news about the latest developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The researchers from Imperial will be sharing their knowledge with delegates about a type of AI called machine learning that allows software applications to become better in predicting outcomes without being explicitly programmed by the user.

Dr Danielle Belgrave, an MRC Fellow from Imperial’s Department of Medicine, will be talking about the application of machine learning in healthcare. 

Dr Konstantina Palla, from the University of Oxford, who is a visiting research associate at the College’s Department of Mathematics, will be giving a tutorial about the principles of reasoning under uncertainty in relation to deep learning.

Dr Marc Deisenroth, a Lecturer in Statistical Machine Learning from Imperial’s Department of Computing, will be giving an introductory course on mathematics for machine learning. Machine learning underlies the recent advances in data science and artificial intelligence and is set to transform the way the world works.

Dr Deisenroth said: “We are extremely excited to be taking part in this really worthwhile project. We hope this first Indaba will be the beginning of a series of conferences and workshops that will help to lay the groundwork for a thriving community of AI scientists in Africa. The widespread adoption of technologies such as mobile phones shows that there is a thirst for technology in the region. We look forward to seeing what innovations African technologists come up with in the future to help spur on the development of AI, which will increasingly become more important in all our daily lives.”

Deep learning

There is at present a major global focus on machine learning involving billions of dollars in investment and revenue. These techniques underpin the modern foundations of smart technology – from Siri the intelligent personal iPhone assistant to the predictive algorithms websites such as YouTube and Facebook use to personalise content for users.

Currently, Africa has a low participation in AI research and development, although the continent has the skills and energy to take full advantage of these technologies. The aim is to stimulate the participation of South Africans, and Africans more generally, within the research and innovation landscape surrounding deep learning and machine learning.

The first Deep Learning Indaba will take place from 10 to 15 September 2017. There will be a series of tutorials on deep learning and machine learning for South African students, researchers and technologists. The organisers hope this will become an annual event for students, research staff, industry and entrepreneurs, supporting training and engagement with research at the forefront of the field.