Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 12 September 2023 – ADIA Lab, the independent Abu Dhabi-based institute dedicated to basic and applied research in data and computational sciences, will host the inaugural ADIA Lab Symposium at ADGM in Abu Dhabi on 7 and 8 November 2023.

Members of ADIA Lab's Advisory Board along with ADIA Lab Fellows and principal researchers will participate in the event, examining how data science, blockchain, high performance computing and AI can be utilised to address key challenges in climate change and health sciences, two of the lab's focus research areas.
 
Professor Steven Chu, former US Secretary of Energy and winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, and Professor Sandy Pentland, Toshiba Professor of Media, Arts and Sciences at MIT and director of MIT's Media Lab, will deliver keynote speeches on climate change issues on 7 November. Professor Miguel Hernan, Kolokotrones Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health and winner of the 2022 Rousseeuw Prize for Statistics, will deliver the keynote on health sciences on 8 November. Professor Shafi Goldwasser, Director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley and recipient of the ACM Turing Award, will talk about a cryptographic perspective on trust in machine learning. The event's agenda includes numerous other presentations and discussion panels, along with case studies on ADIA Lab-funded research projects using data and analytics on climate change-related topics.

Dr Horst Simon, ADIA Lab's Director, said: “ADIA Lab was formed to tackle societally-important topics, and our inaugural Symposium is aligned with that ambition by addressing two of the world's most pressing issues of today. 

“Our event will be held just weeks before the UAE hosts COP28, and we are drawing together some of the world's leading data and computational scientists to discuss how these disciplines can help find solutions to climate change's biggest challenges. Health sciences, meanwhile, is another critical focus research area at ADIA Lab, given its strong connections to data science, trustworthy AI and other technologies.   

“We have assembled a world class Advisory Board and group of Senior Fellows at ADIA Lab, and we are excited to share their insights with the research community here in the UAE, and internationally, at our first ADIA Lab Symposium.”

Domestic and international academic, research and corporate organisations have been invited to attend the ADIA Lab Symposium, while individuals with relevant experience will be able to register for in-person tickets. Details of how to register, the full event agenda and other details will be published on ADIA Lab's website: www.adialab.ae

The ADIA Lab Symposium, which will be held annually, is part of ADIA Lab's commitment to playing an active role in the international data and computational science community, contributing to the development of Abu Dhabi's digital ecosystem and raising opportunities for collaboration with UAE-based and international organisations.