AI for Climate Change! AI for FinTech!

Sasha Luccioni and Saloua Benkhouya are our amazing speakers for Wednesday, with two short talks about AI and its applications in climate change and banking.

Details below.

Talk: AI and the Climate Crisis
By Sasha Luccioni

Climate change is the biggest crisis that humanity is currently facing. Machine learning is not guaranteed to help tackle this crisis – but it can. From optimizing energy forecasting to synthesizing new molecules for batteries and improving crisis response, there is a plethora of ways in which ML can be used for both mitigation of and adaptation to the climate crisis. In my presentation, I will talk about climate-related projects at Mila and in elsewhere, shedding light on the initiatives that exist and those that have yet to be created.

Talk: AI and FinTech
By Saloua Benkhouya

Artificial intelligence-powered technologies are driving meaningful change in the financial services sector today, more specifically banks are redefining how they work, what they sell and how they interact with their customers and employees. Saloua Benkhouya will explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used today in banking and how AI is transforming the customer experience.

About the Speakers:

Alexandra (Sasha) Luccioni is a Postdoctoral Researcher working on AI for Humanity initiatives at Mila - Quebec AI Institute, under the supervision of Yoshua Bengio. She obtained her PhD in Cognitive Computing from UQÀM in 2018 and spent two years working in applied ML, specifically in applying deep learning and NLP to different industrial applications. She is highly involved in community initiatives, serving on the Research and Policy Committee of Women in Machine Learning (WiML) and on the Advisory board of Kids Code Jeunesse.

Saloua Benkhouya, is Vice President, Business Financial Services at RBC Royal Bank with over 15 years of international experience in finance and banking. She holds an MBA in Finance and Strategy and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Biology from McGill University. She recently completed executive courses in Fintech at Harvard and in Artificial Intelligence at MIT Sloan School. She’s interested in studying the impact of AI implementation on leadership development in large organizations.

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The event layout is super chill. Its a monthly hangout where we start the talks at 7pm (talks are in a variety of areas) and usually last an hour or so. We usually have one main talk (~45 min) and one or two lightning talks (10-15 minutes).

Contact us at mtlallgirlhacknight@gmail.com