“I had an amazing experience learning from top researchers in a multitude of fields. I enjoyed each and every lecture and am extremely grateful to everyone who played a role in organizing the same.”- Dhruval PB

“Excellent Summer School. I wish to thank the organizers for inviting resource persons who are experts in their own domain. The experts shared their thoughts and answered all the queries of the participants. Please continue such summer schools in near future.”-S. Esakirajan

These are the words of some of the attendees of the 6th Summer School on Artificial Intelligence (AI) with a focus on Computer Vision and Machine Learning. Summer Schools are organized annually at the Centre for Visual Information Technology (CVIT) at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H) to provide insight into Computer Vision and Machine Learning for top research groups of the country as well as those aspiring researchers among the second and third-tier institutes equally.

 

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Summer School on AI took place from July 18 - August 19, 2022. It was conducted virtually from Monday - Saturday, with two-hour evening sessions to accommodate national and international speakers and attendees, contrary to the two-week full-day on-site sessions that had been taking place before. The one-month-long Summer School was organized by Prof. C. V. Jawahar of IIITH, Prof. Vineeth Balasubramanian of IIT-H, and Prof. Vinay Namboodiri of the University of Bath, UK. The organizing committee included Aradhana Vinod, Ambili S., Cecilia Antony, Ram Sharma, Rohitha C. and Varun Bhargavan, supported by student volunteers. Aside from the CVIT faculty, national and international speakers gave lectures on the basics of the applications of machine learning to the most recent advancements in the domain. The session chairs, consisting of professors from IIIT and other renowned universities across India, were chosen with utmost care to ensure that their expertise and field match the speakers and their topics. From over a thousand applications more than 700 attendees, comprising students, academia, and professionals from the industry, were handpicked. At the end of the Summer School, the 23 speakers were given a virtual memento and the attendees who met the attendance requirement received a participation certificate.

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It takes months to plan, organize and carry out such an event, and only a well-committed and hardworking team can execute it so smoothly. Ambili was involved from the very beginning of planning the Summer School, from screening the applications and selecting the eligible attendees, tracking attendance, and creating virtual mementos and certificates. Rohitha handled registration while Varun created user ids and passwords for the participants, making sure to avoid any technical errors. Ram assured proper network connectivity throughout the Summer School. Aradhana prepared Welcome/Thank you slides daily for the student volunteers to present and introduce the session chairs. Aradhana and Cecilia coordinated with the session chairs and student volunteers, making sure the questions from the students are filtered and assuring the question/answer sessions are done smoothly. The student volunteers served an integral part throughout the Summer School, introducing and thanking the speakers and serving as the moderators. Each and every member of the organizing committee fulfilled their responsibilities with so much dedication and made the Summer School a great success.

“The entire program schedule was planned very carefully by the organizers in such a way that there was continuity and smooth transition from the basics to the advanced topics, and the speakers were selected accordingly,” said Cecilia Antony.