IIT-M hosts two-day Web Science Symposium

According to the IIT Madras statement, the event is being held jointly with Web Science Trust (WST), an UK-based non-profit trust that supports global development of Web Science. The WST has established an international network, bringing together world-class research laboratories to support the Web Science Research and education programme. The program comprises lectures by trustees of web science trust and experts from around the country.

Delivering an address on ‘Web Science, AI and Future of the Internet,’ UK, Regius University of Southampton, Professor of Computer Science, and Executive Director, Web Science Institute, Prof Dame Wendy Hall, said, Web architecture is a simple set of protocols that gave rise to complex macro phenomena. Web is the co-creation between humans who put the content and the technology that enables it. The whole thing is designed for wonderful things but when it goes big, bad things such as cyber bullying and fake news will happen.

Further, Prof Wendy Hall said, ‘’Web and Web Science have always involved Artificial Intelligence (AI). The web services and social networks use AI to enhance performance and provide personalised services. The web scientists use AI to do their research. Some of the important issues involving AI include ‘Will AI make us smarter,’ ‘job losses vs job creation and skills gap,’ and ‘data access issues such as privacy.’’

The goal of this symposium is to provide a venue for the Indian web science community to meet and exchange research ideas that could result in collaborations at this symposium and in the future events of this series.

This edition of the symposium features lectures by eminent researchers from Indian academia and industry as well as some of the trustees of the web science trust from the UK and the US.

A research poster session was also held with presentations from research scholars from around the country, as well as a panel discussion on fostering the web science community in India.

Speaking later, IIT Madras, RBC-DSAI, Head Prof B Ravindran said, “There are many India-specific challenges that need to be addressed by Web Science. While India has a nascent Web Science community, we need much larger nation-wide efforts to develop solutions tailored to the Indian society. This symposium is an attempt to bring both Indian academia and industry together to enable more active focus on web science research for India. The mission of RBC DSAI includes enabling and studying societal impact of AI and Data Science.The web is the vehicle through which much of AI reaches society at large. It is imperative for us to be involved in web science research and enablement.”