Beirut AI Community Recap: February
It’s been another great month for us at Beirut AI, from spreading AI stories, to university collaborations and expanding the community!
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Beirut AI, it is a local community that is part of a global network of AI communities around the globe (www.city.ai). Our mission is to accelerate the adoption of AI, in all its forms, across businesses and companies, something referred to as Applied AI.
Here’s a quick recap of how Beirut AI spent February.
Artificial Intelligence at Lebanese American University, Byblos
The University Ambassador program that we launched in January was a hit! Thanks to instructors and students, Beirut AI hosted an Artificial Intelligence workshop open to all interested students at the Lebanese American University in Byblos on February 13th. A three-hour workshop gave everyone a thorough look into Artificial Intelligence before a hands-on application that saw people work together, brainstorm, and push boundaries.
Artificial Intelligence at American University of Beirut (AUB)
On February 23rd, Beirut AI gave another university workshop, this time at AUB, in collaboration with IEEE and AUB’s AI Club. The event welcomed over 100 interested students, including some from other universities. This only goes to show the growing interest in Artificial Intelligence by students across the country.
The Lebanese University in Roumieh was also exposed to Artificial Intelligence on February 20th as Beirut AI’s founder gave an interesting 2-hour workshop for engineering students on Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning.
Our recently launched university ambassador program reaches out to interested and supportive university students to help us initiate and encourage more AI-driven events on campus and introduce all students to these technologies, making it available knowledge for all.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) Part II
On February 15th Beirut AI gave a continuation of a previous technical workshop on NLP. It kicked off with a recap of the first NLP workshop and explored a more detailed understanding that leverages the power of meaning by using a state-of-the-art technique called Word Embeddings. You can find the presentation and code here.
NLP with Berytech
Beirut AI joined forces with Berytech to organize three monthly events. The first one took place on February 27th and closed an awesome month for Beirut AI. The event was about Natural Language Processing. The speakers were Dr. Hazem Hajj, an AUB professor who spoke about NLP in Arabic as opposed to the usual English and French applications; Maher Hassanieah CEO of Fig, who spoke about chatbot technologies, why chatbots are needed and how they can help businesses reach customers and perform other tasks in this new social media era; and Eddy Touma CEO of Klangoo who gave a brief intro on how his company is using NLP to turn unstructured online content into valuable information. He also spoke about MAGNET, their flagship product which is an Audience Engagement Solution supporting the Media industry.
The remaining two events in collaboration with Berytech are scheduled for March and April. More details about these events and the chosen themes will be shared soon.
As promised, February was a month full of university workshops, hands-on practice, and Part II of last year’s NLP workshop. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with our latest news and event announcements. Looking forward to another great month around AI!
