Expanding the frontiers of AI – Applications in Environmental Conservation and Health

Location 

Zoomlink (if asked for a password: MichiganAI)

Abstract

AI is without doubt a transformative technology with great potential for good. Applications in environmental conservation are still relatively unexplored by AI researchers and more needs to be done to realize the potential of AI to promote environmental sustainability. In this talk I will describe work done at the Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence to develop technology for ecosystem monitoring. In addition, I will describe some work applying medical imaging to rheumatic heart disease, a disease prevalent in low-income countries and unfortunately underexplored. The talk will explore how to expand the frontiers of AI with these two applications serving as examples of areas deserving more attention

Bio

Ciira wa Maina is a lecturer at Dedan Kimathi University of Technology in Nyeri, Kenya where he also conducts research in a number of areas including bioacoustics, IoT, machine learning and data science.

Prior to joining DeKUT in 2013, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sheffield between 2011 and 2013, a PhD student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, USA between 2007 and 2011 and a BSc Student at the University of Nairobi between 2002 and 2007.