Introduction to contemporary artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning

The series is specifically designed for the following cohort of professionals who are not from Computer Science and Data Science disciplines

About the lecture series

Effective application of AI requires a good understanding of its fundamental concepts and principals and an AI way of thinking. This lecture series aims at introducing AI to non-technical professionals who wish to employ AI in their scientific research and business development. It provides the necessary vocabulary and conceptual understanding required to describe and discuss problems and proper use of contemporary AI, machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL).

In addition, it will provide opportunities for participants to appreciate and understand some of the successful AI applications in real-world, as well as the limitations of AI techniques. The series will also provide the participants with general information on the commonly used AI tools and an opportunity to discuss their own problems with AI experts who deliver the lecture series. 

The lecture series consists of the following three modules

• A Gentle Introduction to Contemporary AI
• A Gentle Introduction to Deep Learning
• A Gentle Introduction to Generative AI (including NLP)

Who will benefit

The series is specifically designed for the following cohort of professionals who are not from Computer Science and Data Science disciplines

• Staff (academic and professional) and Higher Degree Research students who are interested in applying AI, ML and/or DL in their research and services.
• Professionals from industries, government departments and communities who are interested in understanding and applying AI, ML and/or DL in their products and services.

Expected Outcomes

Through the series, participants will have an opportunity to learn how to:

• Understand the relationship between data engineering, data science and AI
• Describe supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning and their usages
• Compare AI vs ML and vs Deep Learning (DL)
• Understand the problems of classification, clustering and regression
• Discuss how to identify which kinds of problems are applicable for specific use cases
• Understand training, evaluation, data cleaning, data annotation and data augmentation in ML and DL
• Discuss ML and DL use cases in different domains
• Identify when to use or not to use ML or DL
• Understand usage of commonly used tools, libraries, and platforms
• Discuss on how ML and DL deal with unstructured data
• Certificate: Certificates on individual modules will be issued to the participants who complete the modules.

The series will be delivered by the members of Centre for Artificial Intelligence (CAI), University of Wollongong, in person (onsite on Wollongong campus). 

Schedule and Registration

The registration fee of the lecture series in 2023/2024 is charged by each module, with a fee of $10 AUD for staff and $5 AUD for students for each module. If you are attending all 3 modules, you will need to add 3 registrations to your cart before checking out.

Note that (a) the three modules are organised sequentially, later modules would assume the knowledge covered in the previous modules and (b) the number of available seats is limited in order to facilitate effective interactions among the lecturers and the participants.

Dates, times and modules

When: 21-23 February 2023 | 10 am - 12 am

Module 1/Day 1: A Gentle Introduction to Contemporary AI

Module 2/Day 2: A Gentle Introduction to Deep Learning

Module 3/Day 3: A Gentle Introduction to Generative AI (including NLP)