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- Meetup next week, Meta Events and more | AITX Newsletter #7
Meetup next week, Meta Events and more | AITX Newsletter #7
AITX Team
February 23, 2024
Hello everyone! AITX Team here with more updates this week.
If you’re new here, welcome! 👋 At AITX, we aim to:
Connect you with like-minded peers passionate about AI.
Provide a space for sharing ideas and receiving feedback on AI projects you’re building.
Share helpful tools and invaluable resources.
February AITX Meetup: Our next meetup is scheduled for Tuesday, February 27th, make sure to sign up here! Google’s GenAI team will be at this event too and will be showing off some their latest AI capabilities (Did somebody say Gemini? 👀 ). To stay in the loop on all our monthly meetups and other community organized events, subscribe to our AITX calendar here.
Moving forward, we’re excited to host AITX at the Antler offices on the 4th floor of the The Scarbrough cafe.
Please Read — SxSW 2024 Event Attendance:
We are in the process—with a few collaborators—of getting an venue and hosting an event before the official AI events of SxSW start. We want to know how many people we can expect to better understand the size of the venue we should get.
Please fill out this form here.
In this week’s edition you’re getting:
5 Upcoming Events
3 Austin AI Community Stories
1 Community Highlight
So let’s jump in!
UPCOMING EVENTS
Highlighting the first three standout events! Meta is at the forefront of the AI Open Source revolution and is eager to meet Austin's AI enthusiasts, especially those intrigued by open-source innovation.
When: Wednesday, March 6 | 5:00 PM - 7:30 PM CST
Where: Meta Austin’s 3rd & Shoal office 607 West 3rd St Austin, TX
What: Register here by March 1 to join Meta during SXSW EDU for a free reception with appetizers, drinks, and a panel discussion about the value of AI and immersive tech for education. Experience MetaAI demos on Ray Ban Meta smart glasses, try Quest 3 mixed reality headsets, and network with other innovators.
When: Sunday, March 10 | 9:00 AM - 8:00 PM CST
Where: 103 E 5th Street, Suite 103 - 105 Austin, TX
What: SeedAI is bringing together policymakers, the tech industry, creators, and the AI workforce of tomorrow for a full day of programming at SXSW. Register here to join SeedAI for panels, red-teaming exercises, networking, and demos from AI creators, MetaAI on Ray Ban Meta smart glasses, and Quest 3 mixed reality demos.
When: Monday, March 11 | 4:00 - 5:00 PM CST
Where: Hilton Austin Downtown Salon C 500 East 4th St Austin, TX
What: Join this SXSW panel discussion to explore how we can advance a new era of AI built on radically open forms of AI collaboration and information sharing to ultimately cultivate greater levels of innovation and inclusivity.
When: Tuesday, March 5 | 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM CST
Where: Capital Factory 701 Brazos St · Austin, TX
What: A practical event with Olga Bondareva, former Social Media Lead for Central and Eastern Europe at Microsoft and Founder of ModumUp, a LinkedIn marketing agency and platform. Olga will present several scenarios on how to enhance the productivity of your LinkedIn marketing using AI.
When: Tuesday, March 12 | 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM CDT
Where: Oracle 2300 Oracle Wy · Austin, TX
What: A monthly in-person AI meetup in Austin, in collaboration with Oracle. Join us for deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs and ML, food/drink, networking with speakers and fellow developers
When: Thursday, March 7 | 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM CST
Where: Panera Bread 4625 West William Cannon Drive · Austin, TX
What: Asking hard questions. What is intelligence? What is intelligence? Are you intelligent? Does the definition depend on context? What is the relationship/association between intelligence and 1) knowledge, 2) information, and/or 3) understanding?
COMMUNITY STORIES
Cyber Attacks & AI
Cybersecurity threats are escalating in both pace and sophistication, as evidenced by the latest findings from the 2024 CrowdStrike Global Threat Report.
This year has seen a marked acceleration in the velocity of cyberattacks, with adversaries exploiting stolen credentials to launch attacks more stealthily and swiftly than ever before. A particularly concerning development is the increased utilization of generative AI by nation-state actors and hacktivists.
These groups are leveraging AI to democratize the tools and techniques for cyberattacks, lowering the barrier for entry and paving the way for more advanced and sophisticated operations. This trend underscores the urgent need for organizations to adapt and strengthen their cybersecurity defenses to counteract these evolving threats.
Read more here.
AI Master’s Program at UT
The University of Texas at Austin's new online master's program in AI is a response to the growing global demand for expertise in generative AI and big data, recognized by the World Economic Forum as crucial emerging skills.
Priced at about $10,000, the program is designed to be accessible, drawing a diverse cohort from around the world, highlighting Austin's growing importance in the AI landscape.
With a comprehensive curriculum that includes ethics and societal impacts, UT Austin is preparing graduates to navigate and shape the future of AI technology.
Read more here.
Revolutionizing Mental Health Assessment: UT Austin's AI Breakthrough Offers New Hope
Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a new AI-powered mental health assessment tool that matches the effectiveness of traditional questionnaires in diagnosing depression symptoms, as reported in the Journal of Affective Disorders.
This AI platform, created by Aiberry, analyzes text, audio, and video cues during bot-administered interviews without bias concerning gender, age, or race. It represents a significant advancement in mental health care, offering a nuanced, context-rich evaluation of depression symptoms, and could greatly alleviate the current shortage of mental health professionals by facilitating regular, scalable symptom monitoring.
Read more here.
COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHT
This week, we are highlighting a team that made our news last week: Nomadik AI. Founded by Trevor Sorrells and Morgan Winters.
Morgan and Trevor have spent the last few years building an unparalleled skill set in AI/ML and geospatial analysis; now applying these skills at Nomadik to address the nationwide issue of homelessness, starting in their backyard - Austin, TX.
Check it out here!
That’s all for now, folks!
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