Started in 2015, the Data Science in India workshop, organized by the India Chapter of ACM SIGKDD (IKDD) as part of the annual ACM SIGKDD conference, aims to showcase the growth and achievements of the Data Science community in India and also help build connections between the Data Science community, both within and outside India. The workshop seeks to achieve this using a mix of talks, panel discussion, and networking roundtables, involving both stalwarts and budding experts, researchers and practitioners, academia and industry. This year’s virtual event continues this journey using the familiar format but with new themes and voices.

Program Highlights


Welcome Address by Indrajit Bhattacharya, President, ACM-IKDD

09:00 - 09:15 AM (IST)

We will provide a brief update on the different outreach and networking activities conducted by ACM-IKDD since the last workshop in 2023.

Keynote Talk by Mitesh Khapra

“Towards transforming the Indian language technology ecosystem”

Session Chair: Adway Mitra, (IIT Kharagpur)

09:15 - 10:15 AM (IST)
Speaker


Mitesh Khapra
IIT Madras

Abstract:
In this talk, I will reflect on our journey towards transforming the landscape of Indian language technology. I will delve on our engineering-heavy approach in addressing the initial scarcity of data for Indian languages, while gradually establishing the necessary human resources to gather high-quality data on a larger scale through Bhashini. The objective is to share our insights into developing high quality open-source technology for Indian languages. This involves curating extensive data from the internet, constructing multilingual models for transfer learning, and crafting high-quality datasets for fine-tuning and evaluation. I will then transition into how our experiences can benefit the broader AI community, particularly as India aspires to create Language Model Models (LLMs) for Indic languages.

Emerging Applications of Data Science in India

Session Chair: Manjira Sinha, (TCS Research)

10:15 AM - 11:30 AM (IST)

This session features four short talks by eminent domain experts to showcase the transformative impact of Artificial Intelligence in the sectors of healthcare, accessibility, climate modeling, remote sensing, and energy management.

The Future of 24/7 Clean Energy with (Gen)AI
Srinivasan Iyengar
Microsoft Research India
The Future of 24/7 Clean Energy with (Gen)AI
Shivkumar Kalyanaraman
Microsoft Research India
Building Data Science Driven Health Systems Preparedness: Lessons from COVID-19 and AMR
Tavpritesh Sethi
IIIT Delhi
Language Technologies for Accessibility
Tirthankar Dasgupta
TCS Research
Machine Learning and Earth observation applications for Climate impact
Varun Gulshan
Google Research India

Navigating the Data Science Landscape in India: Career opportunities across sectors

Session Chair : Lavanya Tekumalla

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM (IST)

This panel features a discussion between distinguished representatives from academia, industry, social sector, and startups who will share their insights on the unique roles and skills needed to thrive in each sector, which can be valuable to aspiring students, professionals, and researchers in this dynamic field.


Preethi Jyothi
IIT Bombay
[Moderator]

Subhashis Banerjee
IIT Delhi, Ashoka University

Deepthi Nandakumar
GE Research

Dipyaman Banerjee
AI4ICPS (Technology Innovation Hub, IIT Kharagpur)

Alpan Raval
Wadhwani AI

Roundtable Networking Sessions

12:30 PM - 01:00 PM (IST)

An opportunity for participants with similar interests to connect with each other in virtual breakout rooms.

schedule

TIME (IST)TITLE
09:00 AM - 09:15 AMWelcome Address by Indrajit Bhattacharya, President, ACM-IKDD
09:15 AM - 10:15 AMKeynote Talk by Mitesh Khapra, IIT Madras
(Session Chair: Adway Mitra, IIT Kharagpur)
10:15 AM - 11:30 AMShort talks on “Emerging Applications of Data Science in India”
(Session Chair: Manjira Sinha, TCS Research)
11:30 AM - 12:30 PMPanel Discussion on “Navigating the Data science Landscape in India: Career opportunities across sectors”
(Session Chair: Lavanya Tekumalla)
12:30 PM - 01:00 PMRoundtable Networking Sessions

registration

Registration for this event is closed