Talk Title, Abstract & Bio of Speakers

Vivek Seshadri, Microsoft Research
Presentation Schedule: 9:15-9:55am

Talk Title: Digital Work in Low-resource Settings

Abstract: With a global push toward a digital future, there is an increase amount of digital work available. Specifically, in the domain of language technologies, there is a growing need for labelled datasets. However, the notion of digital work is still alien to people in rural communities. In addition to this awareness problem, there are also challenges in access due to poor or no internet connectivity in various regions. Over the past few year, we have been working on Karya, a platform to bridge this gap and make digital work accessible to people in rural communities. In this talk, I will summarize various research studies that we conducted as part of Karya and our learnings.

Bio: Vivek Seshadri is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research India. His broad research interests are in the intersection of technology and empowerment. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 2016. During his PhD, he worked on problems in computer architecture with specific focus on building efficient memory systems.

Dr. Sandeep Athavale, TCS Research
Presentation Schedule: 10:00-10:40am

Talk Title: Contextual Game Design

Abstract: User engagement is a key factor for most products and services (and therefore business) to make the required impact and/or generate revenues. Games promise user engagement by augmenting (or creating) motivation beyond the functional efficiency provided by UI and UX design. Organizations, businesses, and governments are therefore applying games or game elements to varied contexts such as education, healthcare, product promotion, citizen behavior-change to name a few. However, users cannot be expected to play games out of their contexts and still make a meaningful change in the context. Therefore, designers must embed games or game elements inside the context. While easier said, this requires understanding and extracting interesting elements from within the context and translating them into a game that is playable inside the user's routine. Rooting the game inside a context also means possible use of sensors and analytics that allow users to participate in the 'game' seamlessly. The contextual game design can take several forms such as a full immersive game, series of mini games, playful apps, hackathons and more. This talk will focus on the challenges and possibilities in designing contextual games.

Bio: Sandeep leads the Purposeful Games lab at TCS Research. His work focuses on study and application of games for teaching-learning in the academic, corporate, and societal contexts. He has also worked on design of games and playful activities for enhancing user experience in the domain of healthcare. He has a PhD in Educational Game Design from Design School IIT Bombay (year 2020). His PhD work on endogenous design brings the distinctiveness of the solutions offered by the TCS lab. Sandeep is a Chief Mentor to Educational Game Marketplace Program at TCS. He has been a visiting faculty at NID Bangalore and IDC IIT Bombay for Masters course in Game Design. He has been a panelist at NASSCOM Game Conference and India Game Development Conference in the field of serious games. He is an advisor to professional bodies such as PMI India and has conducted faculty development programs through AICTE and IEEE. Sandeep has several publications and few patents in his name.

Sumita Sharma, University of Oulu, INTERACT Research Group
Presentation Schedule: 10:45-11:25am

Talk Title: Participatory AI with Children: in pursuit of fair and inclusive technology futures

Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving to mimic human-like cognition, emotions, conversations, and decision-making. Yet, how AI affects children is not well studied. Studies on AI and children mainly focus on cultivating, nurturing, and nudging children towards technology use and design and while various global and national policy frameworks on Children and AI are being developed; the approaches are child-centered but not child-led, restricting children from affecting their own digital futures. Further still, there is little discussion with children on the limitations, inherent biases, and lack of diversity in current design and development of AI, and on critical examination of the ethical aspects of technology use, design, inherent limitations, and consequences of these on children and society at large. In this talk, I will discuss two case studies exploring ethical AI with children with a focus on algorithmic fairness, human agency and oversight, and present my work on developing stakeholder-inclusive models for critically examining the design of ethical AI. Building a case for employing future oriented methods when working with children on the topics of ethical AI, I will also present my research on inclusive design futuring approaches.

Bio: Sumita Sharma is a postdoc researcher in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) with a focus on empowerment, inclusion, and accessibility using interactive and novel technologies for and with children and underserved user groups. She has worked on designing and evaluating technology for underserved communities, including children living in the remote regions of Northern Siberia, children with autism and other developmental disabilities, children living in urban slums in India, and low-literate women in Guwahati, India. From 2020, she is working on short-term and long-term participatory studies on critical design and making with children in schools in Oulu, Finland. She has employs design fiction with a diverse set of participants and in diverse contexts, through projects with schools and workshops with adults, creating diverse approaches for designing for the future. From Sep 2021, she is working on her postdoc project on Participatory AI with Schoolchildren, funded by the Academy of Finland (https://interact.oulu.fi/paiz).