Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence

Біздің жаңа деректер жинағы қазақ тіліндегі ауызша пәрмендерін қажет ететін ақылды үйлерде, ақылды көліктерде, виртуалды көмекшілерде қолданылуы мүмкін. Мысалы, «шамды қос/өшір», «оңға жүр» және т.б. 🗣️🚗 🤖
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Жоба туралы көбірек ақпарат сайтымызда орналасқан.
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Our new dataset can be used in smart houses, smart cars, virtual assistants that require Kazakh language speech commands. For example, commands like “switch the lights on/off”, “to the right” and etc. 🗣️🚗 🤖
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More information about the project is available on our website.

Барлық деректер жинақтарымыз ашық бастапқы кодымен тегін түрде қол жетімді. Деректер жинақтарымызды біздің веб-сайттан немесе GitHub парақшамыздан жүктеуге болады 📊
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All ISSAI datasets are open-source and free to download from our website or GitHub page 📊

We are delighted to invite you to join us for a "Women in STEM" event, organized by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the TechWomen program 🇺🇸👩🏻‍💻
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This event will bring together some of the top female professionals and mentors from leading Silicon Valley companies, who will share their expertise and knowledge in the field of STEM, organize networking and establish connections for future collaborations. We will discuss current trends in the industry, career paths, and strategies for success 🚀
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🗓️ 28th April 14:00
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📍Orange Hall, C2, NU
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Both men and women are welcome to the event! We hope you will be inspired by the stories of our guests.
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REGISTER via the link in Bio 👆🏻
(Bios of speakers and Program are in the registration link)
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Summer Research Program at ISSAI 👩🏻‍💻🧑🏻‍💻
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We are inviting undergraduate and graduate students for our Summer Research Program which will take place in summer 2023.
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The intern will work together with our data scientists and researchers on our projects, and will gain valuable knowledge and skills in the field of machine learning, data science algorithms, and AI.
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🔸 Requirements:
- Math skills (required): Linear Algebra, Probability and Statistics
- Programming skills (required): Python
- Machine learning skills (preferable): PyTorch/TensorFlow/Keras, Scikit-learn, Numpy, Pandas, Matplotlib
- Experience in one of these is preferable, but not mandatory: Computer Vision, NLP, Speech Recognition, Reinforcement Learning
- English language proficiency (minimum intermediate level)
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🔸 Dates:
⁃ Program starts in mid-June. Dates might slightly vary
⁃ Duration = 2 months
⁃ Payment is in accordance with the level of education and skills within the limits established by the rules of NU
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👉🏻 To apply, please send your resume, academic transcript, cover letter describing skills, research interests, and intended period of the program to [email protected] by 31 March 2023 👈🏻

Are you interested in a career in Big Tech? Do you dream of working at one of the world's most leading companies? Then you won't want to miss this incredible opportunity! 💥
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Join us for a guest talk "Software engineering at Google. Practical tips and advice" with Mr Ali Zhussupov, a software engineer at Google, YouTube, who will share his practical tips and advice on what it takes to succeed in the world of tech 👨🏻‍💻
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This is a chance to learn from someone who has experienced firsthand what it's like to work at Google and who can provide valuable insights on how to stand out in a competitive industry.
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You will gain a deeper understanding of the industry and the tools needed to succeed, as well as learn how to optimize your skills to reach your full potential. You will also have a chance to ask questions to Ali.
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So, mark your calendars and join us for an informative and inspiring talk with Ali Zhussupov! This is a must-attend for anyone interested in pursuing a career in tech ✅
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🗓️ Date: 11th March 16:00 (4 pm)
📍 Place: Zoom-webinar
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👉🏻 REGISTER AT THE LINK IN BIO 👆🏻🔗
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*this event is only for NU community

Have you heard about Edge and Tiny Machine Learning? 🤔 These emerging technologies are revolutionizing the way we interact with smart devices. 🔥
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They take things to the next level, enabling machine learning on incredibly small, low-power devices.
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Read our post for more information ℹ️
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ISSAI at the 5th International Digital Almaty Forum
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On 2 and 3 February 2023, the 5th International Digital Forum “Digital Almaty: Digital Partnership in the New Reality” was held in Almaty.
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ISSAI participated in the universities’ exhibition and represented Nazarbayev University together with the School of Engineering and Digital Sciences (SEDS). In addition, ISSAI and SEDS researcher Tolegen Akhmetov presented his project “Industrial Safety using AR” in the Forum’s Innovation Zone, where projects related to digital technologies for manufacturing were exhibited. ISSAI members spoke about the Institute’s scientific projects and developments, such as AI projects for Kazakh and Turkic languages.
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The ISSAI projects attracted the attention of many young people interested in big data, data science, and AI. In addition, several well-known bloggers recorded videos about the Institute’s projects. The Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Sayasat Nurbek, visited the ISSAI stand and asked questions about the Institute’s latest projects.
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The Forum programme included 29 panel discussions, more than 150 speakers from the international and Kazakhstani IT communities. More than 17,000 visitors were counted on the first day of the Forum.

ISSAI researchers have developed a new multilingual model that can recognize ten Turkic languages—Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Chuvash, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Sakha, Tatar, Turkish, Uyghur, and Uzbek. The model can also recognize English and Russian speech.
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The aim was to develop a speech recognition model for Turkic languages for most of which very few publicly available speech data on Internet exist. By utilizing the common linguistic features of Turkic languages, researchers developed a model in which the ten Turkic languages benefit from each other.
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The AI model takes advantage of the similarity of the Turkic languages. These results would not have been possible to achieve had they created separate models for each language.
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The developed model can be tested on ISSAI’s website. All models, datasets and codes are also publicly available for download.

Қазақстан Республикасының Тәуелсіздік күні құтты болсын! Баршаңызды еліміздің ең ұлық мерекесі - Тәуелсіздік күнімен құттықтаймыз! 🇰🇿
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Отанымыздың мерейі әрдайым ұстем болсын! Тәуелсіздігіміз тұғырлы болсын, тәуелсіз Қазақстан мәңгі жасасын! Дәулетіміз шалқып, береке-бірлігіміз жараса берсін!

Ғалымдарымыз Ахмет Байтұрсынұлы атындағы Тіл білімі институты ұйымдастырған "Қазақ тілінің ақпараттық кеңістігі және Ұлттық корпустар құрастыру тәжірибесі” конференциясында қазақ тіліне арналған жасанды интеллект жобаларымыз туралы баяндама жасады.
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Атап айтқанда Қазақ тілі корпусы, Қазақ тілі корпусы 2, Қазақ мәтінді сөйлеуге айналдыра алатын технологиясы және Қазақ тіліндегі атаулы мәндерді анықтауға арналған деректер жинағы жобалар көрсетілді.
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Конференция Қазақстан Республикасының Ғылым Академиясында өтті және Қазақ тіл білімінің Қолданбалы лингвистика саласының негізін салушы, көрнекті ғалым, филология ғылымдарының докторы, профессор Асқар Құдайбергенұлы Жұбановтың 85 жылдық мерейтойына орай өтт
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Our researchers presenting AI projects for the Kazakh language - Kazakh Speech Corpus, Kazakh Speech Corpus 2, Kazakh Text-to-Speech, Kazakh Text-to-Speech 2, and Kazakh Named Entity Recognition Dataset at “The Information Space of the Kazakh Language and the Experience of Building the National Corpus” conference organized by the Institute of Linguistics named after Akhmet Baitursynuly.
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The conference took place at the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan and was held within the framework of the 85th birthday of Kazakhstan’s prominent figure, doctor of philosophy, and mathematical linguist Askar Zhubanov.

From October 24 to 28, 2022, Nazarbayev University (NU) hosted the Youth Forum of the Asian Universities Alliance (AUA).

Here are some photos from the AI and Data Science workshop hosted by ISSAI and the School of Engineering and Digital Sciences. Professors and researchers presented the progress of ongoing research in AI, computer vision, wireless sensors, robotics, and smart systems. More information about the workshop and presenters can be found at: shorturl.at/jor03

Nazarbayev University is the only university in the Central Asian region member of the Asian Universities Alliance, which was established at the initiative of Tsinghua University in 2017. The Alliance has 15 largest universities in Asia.

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office of the Republic of Singapore, Second Minister for Education and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Mohamad Maliki Osman visited ISSAI on 11 October 2022. The visit was part of a working visit to participate in the Sixth Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA).
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During the visit to ISSAI, Minister Maliki was accompanied by officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Singapore and NU Provost Ilesanmi Adesida.
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ISSAI Founding Director Professor Huseyin Atakan Varol acquainted the guests with ISSAI’s major projects. In addition, ISSAI members demonstrated their flagship projects, such as the hybrid mobile robot based on a tensegrity structure and the tensegrity robot—a novel paradigm for robot design.

ISSAI Data Scientist Saida Mussakhojayeva presented ISSAI’s recent project—Kazakh Speech Corpus 2 (KSC2): An Industrial-Scale Open-Source Kazakh Speech Corpus by Saida Mussakhojayeva, Yerbolat Khassanov and Huseyin Atakan Varol—at the 23rd INTERSPEECH conference held in Incheon, Republic of Korea from September 18 to 22.
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INTERSPEECH is the world’s largest and most comprehensive conference on the science and technology of spoken language processing. INTERSPEECH conferences emphasize interdisciplinary approaches addressing all aspects of speech science and technology, ranging from basic theory to advanced applications. This year the conference was held in Songdo ConvensiA, in Incheon, Korea, under the theme “Human and Humanizing Speech Technology”.
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The conference also featured industry guest speakers from organizations like Amazon, Google, LG AI Research, Kakao Enterprise, Samsung Research, LOVO, Supertone, Hyundai Motor Company, Datatang and others.

ISSAI and the School of Engineering and Digital Sciences are happy to invite you to a guest talk from the Head of the Data Analysis and Machine Learning Department of Jusan Bank - Mr. Bauyrzhan Aubakir!
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During the talk you will learn:
- How modern banks leverage AI to tailor user experience
- What technology stack is used in the banks
- How Data Science is used to improve the profitability and predict customer behaviour
- How Jusan solves customers' problems before he/she reports it
- Career opportunities at Jusan Bank
and many more
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Being an NU alumnus himself, Mr. Aubakir will share his experience in AI and answer all of your questions. He will talk about the future employment and career opportunities in his department.
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You can bring your CVs to the talk 📄
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Also, special prizes will be given out to participants!
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⏰ Date and time: 27th September 2022 at 18:00
🗓 Venue: Blue Hall, C2, Nazarbayev University
👉🏻 Register at the link in bio 👆🏻

ISSAI’s project has taken first prize in the scientific video poster competition of the 8th International Summit on Medical & Public Health Nutrition Education & Research. The project “AI Applications for Dietary Interventions: Perspectives from East and Central Asia” is a joint scientific work of ISSAI and Nazarbayev University School of Medicine (NU SOM), authored by Aknur Karabay, Huseyin Atakan Varol, and Yen Mei Chan. The poster was presented by ISSAI data scientist Aknur Karabay.
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The NNEdPro International Summit on Nutrition and Health is a leading annual scientific meeting. The theme of this year’s summit is Empowering Global Nutrition with Digital Technology. Professionals, educators, students and researchers from around the world come together to discuss relevant issues pertaining to food, nutrition and public health and to explore innovative proposals to address complex challenges.
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This year, the event was held entirely virtually on 23 July 2022.  Throughout the summit, participants attended plenary sessions, interactive panel discussions, and abstract presentations.

ISSAI researcher Zhanat Makhataeva presented her ExoMem project at the Fourth Annual EdTech Forum held in Nur-Sultan, June 27-29. This year’s key theme was Mobility. Edutainment. Technology. Action (M.E.T.A).
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Speakers at the M.E.T.A panel session presented their technological projects and discussed human-robot interaction in education, current and future education trends, and challenges facing educational reforms. In particular, Zhanat gave a presentation on the use of AR and AI technologies and their application in education or human assistance. She introduced the audience to her ExoMem project, an AR-based human memory augmentation system, and provided examples of other state-of-the-art technologies that can assist human vision, hearing and speech functions.
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The other members of the panel included Rauan Kenzhehanuly (CEO of Bilim Media Group), Aziz Yeszhanov (CEO of Sifro.kz), Kwame Yamgnane (CEO of Qwasar Silicon Valley), and Pavel Koktyshev (CEO of AIFC Tech Hub).
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The forum was also attended by the Minister of Higher Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Sayasat Nurbek, the Governor of the AIFC, Dr. Kairat Kelimbetov, the Deputy Chairman of the Board of M. Narikbayev KazGUU University, Ainur Karbozova, and Coursera Head of Asia Sales, Eklavya Bhave.

A paper entitled “TFW: Annotated Thermal Faces in the Wild” by the ISSAI data scientists A. Kuzdeuov, D. Aubakirova, D. Koishigarina and H. A. Varol was accepted to the prestigious journal IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security. The link to the paper can be found here.

In the paper, the authors present a novel dataset for the face and facial landmarks detection in thermal images. Face detection and localization of facial landmarks are the primary steps in many face applications. Numerous algorithms and datasets have been introduced to achieve accurate detections in the wild. However, varying conditions of illumination still pose challenging problems. In this regard, thermal cameras are widely used because of their operation on longer wavelengths (without requiring the illumination or light). Thermal face and facial landmark detection in the wild is an open research problem because most of the existing datasets were collected in controlled conditions. In addition, many of them were not annotated with the face bounding boxes and facial landmarks.

In this regard, ISSAI created the dataset “TFW: Annotated Thermal Faces in the Wild” with manually annotated bounding boxes and facial landmarks. The dataset contains 9,982 images of 147 subjects collected under controlled and uncontrolled conditions. As a baseline, we trained the YOLOv5 and YOLO5Face models on our dataset and achieved accurate results on the external RWTH-Aachen thermal face dataset.

The dataset, source code, and pre-trained models publicly available at ISSAI’s website and on GitHub: https://lnkd.in/eqqxCgcx to bolster research in thermal face analysis.

The President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev visits Nazarbayev University and the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence for the first time
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During the visit, President of the University Shigeo Katsu welcomed the Head of State and presented a master plan for the development of the campus, research centers and laboratories of Nazarbayev University.
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In particular, the Head of State familiarized himself with the projects of the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence (ISSAI). ISSAI Founding Director, Prof. Huseyin Atakan Varol, gave a visual presentation on ISSAI’s research work and activities. Prof. Varol expounded on the Institute’s projects, including AI-based speech and natural language processing technologies for the Kazakh language, AI solutions for the Ministry of Finance and advancements in healthcare, and reported on the educational initiatives for students in Kazakhstan. Following this, ISSAI Technical project coordinator, Yerbol Absalyamov, demonstrated the technologies developed by the ISSAI team for automatic Kazakh speech recognition and Kazakh text-to-speech conversion.
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Researchers Dr. Zhanat Kappassov, Togzhan Syrymova, and Dr. Azamat Yeshmukhametov presented their scientific projects to the President. Particularly, Dr. Kappassov and Ms. Syrymova demonstrated their project “Tactile Glove for Breast Lump Detection”, and Dr. Yeshmukhametov introduced the President to the project “Tensegrity Robot: A Novel Robot Design Paradigm”. #назарбаевуниверситеті #назарбаевуниверситет

Summer Research Program at ISSAI 👩🏻‍💻🧑🏻‍💻
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We are inviting undergraduate and graduate students for our Summer Research Program which will take place in summer 2022.
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The intern will work together with our data scientists and researchers on our projects, and will gain valuable knowledge and skills in the field of machine learning, data science algorithms, and AI.
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🔸 Requirements:
⁃ Python programming skills
⁃ Knowledge of general machine learning and deep learning concepts
⁃ Experience with Pytorch, Tensorflow or Keras (preferable)
⁃ Computer Vision background (preferable)
⁃ English language proficiency (minimum intermediate level)
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🔸 Dates:
⁃ Program starts in mid-June. Dates might slightly vary
⁃ Duration = 2 months
⁃ Payment is in accordance with the level of education and skills within the limits established by the rules of NU
⁃ Due to the pandemic, online work is possible.
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👉🏻 If you wish to apply, please send your resume, academic transcript, cover letter describing skills, research interests, and intended period of the program to [email protected] by 31 March 2022 👈🏻

We are looking for volunteers to participate in the research study: Artificial Intelligence Applications for Personalised Nutrition Interventions”.

As a participant you will be asked to:

- Complete 2-minutes questionnaire
- Send images of your meal

To participate, use the Telegram link below:

https://t.me/food_collection_bot

ISSAI participated in the 14th IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII 2022), held online on 9-12th January 2022.

At the Symposium ISSAI data scientist Askat Kuzdeuov presented two papers:
- SF-TL54: A Thermal Facial Landmark Dataset with Visual Pairs by Askat Kuzdeuov, Darina Koishigarina, Dana Aubakirova, Saniya Abushakimova, and Huseyin Atakan Varol.
- End-To-End Sequential Indoor Localization Using Smartphone Inertial Sensors and WiFi by Mukhamet Nurpeiissov, Askat Kuzdeuov, Aslan Assylkhanov, Yerbolat Khassanov, and Huseyin Atakan Varol.

IEEE/SICE SII is the premier symposium series presenting the state of the art and future prospects of system integration. Here industry experts, researchers, and academics share ideas and experiences surrounding frontier technologies, breakthrough and innovative solutions, and applications.

Қазақстан Республикасы Тәуелсіздігінің 30 жылдығы құтты болсын!
Баршаңызды еліміздің ең ұлық мерекесі - Тәуелсіздік күні Ақылды жүйелер мен жасанды интеллект институтының атынан шын жүректен құттықтаймыз! 🎉
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Отанымыздың мерейі әрдайым ұстем болсын! Туәелсіздігімз тұғырлы болсын, тәуелсіз Қазақстан мәңгі жасасын! 💐
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Congratulations on the 30th anniversary of Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan!
On behalf of the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence, we sincerely congratulate you on the greatest holiday of our country - Independence Day! 🎉
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May the glory of our homeland always prevail! May our independence be strong, may independent Kazakhstan last forever! 💐

AI is a hot topic nowadays, it enhances the speed and effectiveness of human efforts. But can we amplify our research and innovation in academia?
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To gain insight into the current trends 📈 and developments in AI, we cordially invite you for EXPO 2020 Panel Session: “Artificial Intelligence Education: How to train the future AI workforce for research and innovation?” by NU Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence (NU ISSAI) on December, 14th at 3 pm, at the National Pavilion of Kazakhstan of EXPO Dubai.
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Panel speakers are AI experts and CTOs from G42, Causaly Inc - AI tech company that raised $17 million in venture capital, Jusan Bank and the United Arab Emirates University.
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🔗 For more information and registration, please follow the link https://day.nu.edu.kz/

Thank you for posting about us! Steppe

https://the-steppe.com/razvitie/kak-dopolnennaya-realnost-mozhet-izmenit-ekosistemu-kazahstanskih-gorodov

Как дополненная реальность может изменить казахстанские города? Где применяется технология дополненной реальности, как она связана с концепцией умного города и что будет с промышленной индустрией в будущем.

ISSAI Researcher was announced as a Microsoft Research PhD Fellow in the Inaugural Microsoft Research Summit.

ISSAI researcher Zhanat Makhataeva was awarded the Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship.

The Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship is a global program created for talented PhD students in a computing-related field. Fellowship recipients are provided with 15,000 USD to help complete their doctoral research work and offered a 12-week paid internship with Microsoft. This year, the fellowship was awarded to only 49 PhD students from top universities across the world. Zhanat is the first doctoral student who received this fellowship from Kazakhstan.

Zhanat's work focuses on enhancing human memory and perception by using AR and AI. The results of this research might yield disruptive improvements in human assistive systems, especially for persons with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. She is working on the design of a memory augmentation system using Microsoft HoloLens, where she uses computer vision algorithms to recognize objects and locate users in an AR environment.

ISSAI team delivered a series of lectures to the students of the Asian Universities Alliance (AUA) on 24th and 25th of June 2021. The lecture series were part of the AUA-NU Overseas Study Program 2021 that were aimed to provide participants with the key concepts of data science and artificial intelligence organized by a mutual initiative of AUA and Nazarbayev University (NU).

Participants were the distinguished students from AUA member universities. The program was targeted towards UG students studying Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Data Science. Students were required to have a strong grasp of calculus, probability, linear algebra, and programming in Python.

ISSAI data scientists gave lectures on the topics of Indoor Localization based on WiFi signals, and Particle-based COVID-19 Epidemic Simulator. Related tasks and competitions were also held for participants, supervised by ISSAI members.

The closing ceremony was honored by the NU Provost Ilesanmi Adesida. Provost Adesida emphasized the importance of the AI and data science and announced the winners of the competition.

Компьютер қазақша мәтінді дыбыстай алады. НУ Ақылды жүйелер мен жасанды интеллект институты (ISSAI) ғалымдары қазақ тілінде сөз синтездеу немесе басқаша айтқанда, қазақ мәтінін дыбыстық сигналға түрлендіру технологиясын жасады. Синтез технологиясы - бұл компьютерге кез-келген қазақша мәтінді адам дауысына өте ұқсас дауыспен оқып шығуға мүмкіндік береді.

“Қазақстанда бұл технология ерекше қажеттіліктері бар адамдар үшін, виртуалды көмекшілерде, навигациялық жүйелерде және қазақша мәтінді дыбыстауы қажет болатын қызметтер үшін пайдаланылуы мүмкін. Біздің жобамыздың басты мақсатының бірі - цифрлық технологияларды қазақшалау” - дейді ISSAI постдокторанты Ерболат Хасанов.

Ғалымдар бұл технологияны әйел және ер дауысына салып сөйлейтін екі нұсқасын жасады.

Сөзді синтездеу технологиясының демо-нұсқасын мына сілтеме бойынша көруге болады: https://issai.nu.edu.kz/tts
Сілтеме бойынша ғалымдар GitHub репозиторийімен бөліседі, онда алдын-ала дайындалған модельдер мен коды бар.

The synthetic voice is now able to read the Kazakh text. Scientists from the NU Institute of Smart Systems and AI have developed a Kazakh language speech synthesis project, or in other words the Kazakh text-to-speech conversion. Text-to-speech conversion is the artificial production of human speech which allows a computer to read any text in a voice that is as close to natural as possible.

“In Kazakhstan this technology can be used for people with special needs, virtual assistants, navigation systems, and the public services where text-to-speech conversion is necessary. One of the main goals of our project was to develop the use of the Kazakh language in the digital sphere” - says ISSAI postdoctoral student Yerbolat Khasanov.

Scientists have created two versions of the computer voice – male and female.

Demo version of the kazakh text-to-speech technology can be tested via the link: https://issai.nu.edu.kz/tts
Via the link scientists also share the github repository which contains pre-trained models and code.

ISSAI, in collaboration with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is delighted to invite you to a Zoom-webinar: “The Science of Digital Transformation” 🦾👩🏻‍💻 by Prof. R. Sirkat
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🗓 Date: 13th April 2021
🕗 Time: 19:00
🔹 Zoom link: will be sent closer to the webinar date to your email
👉🏻 please REGISTER for the event by clicking this link: https://cutt.ly/9crMaZ5
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In the webinar you will learn about the use of AI, Machine Learning and Cloud Computing in promoting digital transformation of society. And how AI and ML are used in:
- combating epidemics like COVID-19
- promoting energy and climate security
- autonomous driving
- use of Virtual Reality for remote education