Modern University for Business and Science (MUBS) – Lebanon organized a webinar entitled “Recent Trends in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning” on November 11, 2020.
Professor Bassem Kaissi (VP for International Affairs at MUBS and National
Project coordinator of the Elegant Project) highlighted in his opening speech
that the scale and the surge in attention to artificial intelligence is not a
new concept as the ideas behind the human-machine collaboration has been
floating around since the 1960s but various factors contributed to the idea
being put on hold for a while especially the lack of attention and funding in
what we call now the “AI winters”. However, now billions of dollars are being
annually invested in the industry for its research and development efforts. The
evolution of hardware and software and the innovation in cloud computing have
created the right environment for artificial intelligence and machine learning
to flourish.
The webinar featured 16 high profile speakers in AI and Machine learning representing universities from Italy, Germany, Croatia, Tunisia, UAE, Jordan, and Lebanon in addition to IT companies and AI communities from Lebanon and UAE.
The topics discussed during the webinar included: AI in Higher Education – Preparing graduates for AI – AI in infrastructure – Society 5.0 – AI in Business – AI in Health
In addition to the project partners, around 130 participants attended the event representing major universities in Lebanon including the American University of Beirut, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Beirut Arab University and major IT and AI companies and communities including Digitalization, NVIDIA, IBM, Klangoo, Beirut AI, Ideatolife.