International Webinars on Advances in E services ‘i-Waves 2020’

IIS-TIE (The International cell) and the Department of Computer Science and IT, IIS (deemed to be University), Jaipur in association with Jaipur ACM Professional Chapter organized a webinar series i-waves 2020 - International webinars on Advances in E services from 13 - 19 August 2020.

A formal inaugural ceremony of the webinar series was held on 13 August 2020, followed by the deliberations of the webinar. The ceremony began by seeking the blessings of Maa Saraswati.

The participants were acquainted with IIS (deemed to be University) which is a pioneer university in the state of Rajasthan for imparting quality education to women in different streams. The participants were also briefed about IIS-TIE the “International Cell” of IIS (deemed to be University) Jaipur which intends to facilitate international exposure and global experience to the students as well as the faculty members. It also aims to manage the existing and anticipate the future international relationships, collaborations, and partnerships contributing to the university’s strategic objective towards internationalization.

Prof. Vijay Singh Rathore, Convener i-Waves 2020 and Director, IIS -TIE, The International Cell of IIS (deemed to be University), welcomed all the participants and acquainted them with the aims and objectives of the webinar. The highlight of the inaugural ceremony was the formal launch of the website of International Cell of the IIS (deemed to be University). Honorable Vice Chancellor Dr. Ashok Gupta inaugurated the official website of IIS-TIE and also delivered the welcome address. Dr. Anubha Jain, Associate Professor and Head of the department of CS & IT, proposed a formal vote of thanks to all the members involved in the planning and execution of the event.

Post the inaugural ceremony, the webinar started with the talk of Prof. Jyoti Choudrie, who holds the position of Professor of Information System at University of Hertfordshire United Kingdom. She is a 2019 winner of ‘We Are Tech Women’ in the academia category, along with many other awards and publications to her credit. She has extensive years of experience with specialization in Investigating the social inclusion and adoption of Information and Communications Technologies on society’s ‘marginal groups’.Topic of her session was ‘Older adults Information processing behaviour about Covid 19 Cure and Prevention: A Qualitative Study’.

The participants were introduced to the use of A.I. with cognitive technology, in order to distinguish between true and misinformation. Prof. Jyoti explained how nowadays, easy access to information is adding to the spread of fake news and affecting the current scenario and older adults’ behavior towards non-conventional sources of information. She also explained some tools, techniques and methods that are being used in the field of Artificial Intelligence and training algorithms in the AI robot/machine.

At the conclusion of the webinar the Q&A round was held in which the participants got an opportunity to put forward questions to satisfy their curiosity. The webinar was very insightful and focused on a topic which is relevant yet untouched. The session ended with a vote of thanks by expressing gratitude to Prof. Jyoti Choudrie for taking out time from her busy schedule and making the students aware of how AI can be used to find the source of misinformation and correct it. The webinar was a learning experience which was attended by participants from all over the world. The webinar was attended by 381 participants making the event a success.

On 15th August 2020, the second webinar was held. The title of the first talk was “Artificial intelligence for cloud computing and IoT” led by Prof. Vincenzo Piuri, Professor University of Milan, Italy,the title of the second talk was “Cyber Security Multidisciplinary Approach Present and Post Covid 19” was led by Prof. Pastor Arguella Jr. Dean, College of Computer Studies, University of Perpetual Help System, Phillipines and third talk was titled “Computational image analysis: techniques and results” was led by Prof. João Manuel R.S. Tavares, Professor, Faculty of Engineering , University of Porto, Portugal.

The participants were introduced to the budding concepts of cloud computing and IoT in a very elucidated way and other concepts like data mining and Cloud as AI/CI facilitator/accelerator, IoT as Infrastructure for distributed intelligent processing; its resource management etc.

They were also set in motion towards how image analysis is done and how an image is segmented through various techniques and its results. Students were also elucidated about the importance of image analysis in society and how algorithms for the same are used in different areas such as biology, engineering, medicine etc.

Elaboration of MITHI, National cyber security plan for 2020 and Cyber-attacks during pandemic were also elucidated to the participants by Prof. Pastor. He also explained cyber security concepts and gave a major blueprint of Philippines cyber security architecture.

At the conclusion of the webinar the Q&A round was held in which the participants got an opportunity to put forward questions to sate their curiosity. The overall session was very insightful and was attended by 370 participants who were ebullient to grab eclectic concepts. The session ended with a thank you note by expressing gratitude towards Prof. Vincenzo Piuri, Prof. João Manuel R.S. Tavares, and Prof. Pastor Arguella Jr. for taking out time and sharing their knowledge.

On 17th August 2020, the third webinar was held. The first talk was on “Importance of Explainability in Machine Learning approaches” led by Dr. Caterina Moreira, Lecturer in Information System, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. The second talk was on “Convolutional Neural Networks Architecture Optimization” led by Prof. Milan Tuba, Vice Rector for International Relations Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia.

The participants were introduced to how Artificial Intelligence came into existence by God’s time itself, deep learning concepts, the and importance to incorporate interpretability in predictive process analysis and an interpretable probabilistic approach for demystifying black box by Dr. Moreira while adding further Prof. Tuba elucidated the actual meaning of “Deep” in the term Deep Learning. He also explained a simple mathematical tool i.e. convolutional neural network and its features and optimization problems and risk demulsification in AI tools vs humans.

At the conclusion of the webinar the Q&A round was held in which the participants got an opportunity to put forward questions to sate their curiosity. There were 321 participants for this session. The session was insightful and the students got particulars about Machine learning, AI and deep learning. The session ended with a thank you note by expressing gratitude to Prof. Milan Tuba and Dr. Catarina Moriera for taking out time from their busy schedule and making the students aware of such trending topics.

On 19th August 2020, day 4 of the webinar along with the valediction ceremony of i-Waves was held. At the beginning of the valediction ceremony, Dr. Astha Pareek, Coordinator, i-Waves 2020, delivered the webinar report, providing a description of the deliberations held in the previous three webinars. Then Prof. Vijay Singh Rathore, Convener i-Waves 2020 and Director, IIS -TIE, The International Cell of IIS (deemed to be University), shared his views and impressions of the webinar series. After that, Dr. Raakhi Gupta, Registrar and Prof. K.S. Sharma, Advisor, IIS (deemed to be University), expressed their views on the relevance and successful conduct of the event. Dr. Ashok Gupta, Chancellor, IIS (deemed to be University), delivered the concluding remarks on i-waves 2020. At the end of the valediction ceremony, Dr. Rajveer Singh Shekhawat, Chairman, Jaipur ACM Professional Chapter shared his expert opinion with the participants. After the ceremony, the experts' talks for the evening commenced.

The first talk was by Prof. C.C. Lance Fung, Emeritus Professor, Murdoch University Australia on “Ethical machines- the challenges” and second talk was by lead by Dr. Zdzislaw Polkowski, Faculty of Technical Sciences, Jan Wyzykowsk University,Polkowice Poland on the topic “E-services in business and public administration in Poland'' .

The participants were introduced to E-services in business and public administration in Poland. Dr. Polkowski shared his opinion on the current Covid-19 situation and how IT Solutions are employed in order to carry out different activities. He also explained the essence of Cloud Computing in businesses. Further Prof. C.C. Lance Fung explained how AI can be applied into different areas and what AI can be considered as, an opportunity or a cause of job losses in the coming future. He also discussed code of ethics and personal conduct that how sustainability should be promoted and that the main mission is to advance technologies for Humanity.

At the conclusion of the webinar the Q&A round was held in which the participants got an opportunity to put forward questions to sate their curiosity. The overall session was insightful and the students got particulars about Technology Ethics, How E-services are carrying out business in the current Covid-19 situation. The session ended with a thank you note by expressing gratitude to Prof. C.C. Lance Fung and Dr. Zdzislaw Polkowski for taking out time from their busy schedule and making the students aware of such trending topics. The valedictory and webinar was attended by 319 participants.

All the 4 days of the webinar series were taken up with great enthusiasm and participation. The speakers took up various aspects of e-services and shared their knowledge on the same. Participants got to know about the real life implementations of e-services in various countries across the globe. In the deliberations, problems faced during implementation of e-services were also discussed and solutions were provided by the speakers.