Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
PLENARY SPEAKERS

2:00 – 3:45 pm, November 16, Thursday, Onsite Room 3
Session Chair: Dr. Soheila Ghane

2:00 – 2:15 pm, November 16, Thursday

Dr Srikanth Thudumu 
Senior Research Fellow
Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute (A²I²)
Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia

Dr Srikanth Thudumu is a Senior Research Fellow at the Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute (A2I2), Deakin University. He specializes in translational AI research, focusing on applying state-of-the-art AI advancements to solve real-world problems, particularly identifying unknown or invisible anomalies. With a PhD in AI, his expertise primarily lies in detecting anomalies in high-dimensional big data. His research interests encompass Anomaly Detection, Big Dimensionality, Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), Object Tracking, Operationalising ML, and Translational/Applied AI. Notably, Dr Thudumu successfully led the commercial deployment of an AI-powered, mind-controlled autonomous wheelchair. Dr Thudumu has also secured several research grants, including that of the Defence Science Technology Group (DSTG), Australia. Additionally, he has spearheaded projects involving the development of a Context-aware Search Engine and an AI platform for merchandise image processing.

2:15 – 2:30 pm, November 16, Thursday

Dr. Soheila Ghane
Lead Data Scientist
Co-Founder of Metaboid
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 

Soheila Ghane is Lead Data Scientist and Co-Founder of MetaBoid. She collaborates with the business leaders in devising strategies for ML/AI adoption, education, and maturity assessment. She also leads a team of data scientists in discovering new data driven opportunities, developing and productionizing best practices, and tailoring the solutions’ metrics to the industry and business requirements. Soheila received her PhD degree from The University of Melbourne in the field of computer science and differentially private data analysis. She published papers in top-tier journals including IEEE Transactions and IEEE IoT journal. In her research, she proposed robust and efficient algorithms for preserving individuals’ privacy while sharing and analysing their sensitive data in applications such as transportation.  Her academic and leadership excellence is recognised by Google Research and IEEE Computer Society. She has been recognised by the global Anita Borg Institute as a distinguished woman in tech.

2:30 – 2:45 pm, November 16, Thursday

Dr. Susmita Saha
Research Fellow, Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health
Deputy Director, Ageing and Neurodegeneration
School of Psychological Sciences,
Monash University, Australia
Secretary, IEEE Victorian Section
Secretary, IEEE-VIC Women in Engineering

A title of your talk: Artificial Intelligence to expedite rare disease drug development and clinical trials

Susmita Saha is a distinguished Research Fellow at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Monash University. Her primary research focus revolves around the application of multimodal data processing especially medical imaging analysis and state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to accelerate the drug development and clinical trials for rare neurodegenerative disorders. She has authored 20 high-impact articles in esteemed peer-reviewed journals and conferences. Beyond her academic publications, she holds a portfolio of 5 US patents. Currently she is leading several machine learning projects, as a chief investigator with renowned national and international experts and supervising graduate research students. Furthermore, Dr. Saha holds the position of Deputy Director for the Ageing and Neurodegeneration program within the School of Psychological Sciences at Monash University. Prior to this, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation), the national science agency of Australia (2018-2021), and at IBM Research Australia (2015-2017). In addition, her professional journey has encompassed both academia and industry, including roles in the mobile operator and medical startup sectors. Dr. Saha achieved her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from The University of Melbourne in 2016. Apart from her academic role, Saha is performing as the Secretary of IEEE Victorian Section and Secretary of IEEE-VIC Women in Engineering, contributing to develop and enrich the current and next generation STEM professionals.

2:45 – 3:00 pm, November 16, Thursday

Amin Rigi
Data Science Lead
bp
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

3:00 – 3:15 pm, November 16, Thursday

Reduan H Khan, PhD
Product Owner Principal and Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT)
Telstra
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

3:15 – 3:30 pm, November 16, Thursday

Hany Hossny, PhD
Founder @ DataWorks.ai
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

3:30 – 3:45 pm, November 16, Thursday

Dr Nassim Belbaly
CTO Empathetic AI
GM DragoAI
Melbourne, Australia

Presentation Title: How Text Generation create value for Cx?

Dr Nassim Aissa Belbaly is the CTO and Co-founder of Empathetic AI, a Generative AI startup that specialize in customer support operations for finance and retail sectors proposing an alternative solution to chatbots and he is also GM of DragoAi a consulting firm on AI. He was Full professor in private and public business schools where he served previously as a Dean of Academic Affairs at Montpellier Business School and Director of Birmingham City University Business School in charge of the Accreditations, Faculty management and Academic content. He has mainly published in Information system journals and theoretical analysis papers in the field of Technology and Innovation Management.