KEYNOTE SPEAKER | 19 FEBRUARY 2021 | 13:15 – 14:15

Dra. Núria Oliver

CHIEF DATA SCIENTIST | DATA-POP ALLIANCE AND CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISOR | VODAFONE INSTITUTE

Artificial Intelligence and Education

Nuria Oliver speaks to ITworldEdu about the importance of preparing future generations for what’s next to come in the world of technology: “Artificial Intelligence is changing what we teach and how we teach it.”
“ The dream of personalized education that enables each student to achieve his/her potential will be possible with the support of Artificial Intelligence.”
“We need to prepare our children and adolescents to be active contributors in today’s technological world. Computational Thinking should be part of the core curriculum, together with programs to strengthen creativity and abilities of our social and emotional intelligences.”
s y emocionales “.

Núria Oliver, is Chief Data Scientist at Data-Pop Alliance and Chief Scientific Advisor to the Vodafone Institute. She holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from MIT. She has over 20 years of research experience at MIT, Microsoft Research (Redmond, WA) and as the first female Scientific Director at Telefonica R&D and the first Director of Research in Data Science at Vodafone globally. Her work is internationally known with over 180 scientific publications that have received more than 17000 citations and a ten best paper award nominations and awards. She is co-inventor of 41 filed patents.

For the past 11 years, Núria has held leadership roles creating and leading international research teams. Under her leadership at Vodafone, Núria created and led the global efforts of Research in Data Science, expanding to over 20 countries and involving over 250 people. With her work, she has also contributed to the creation of the global unit on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data, which has generated commercial results of two billion euros in revenues, 200 million euro in efficiency improvements and an increase of the return of investment of at least 15%.

She is a regular keynote speaker at international conferences and an advisor to universities, foundations, companies, governments and institutions, such as the European Commission and the World Economic Forum.

She is the first computer scientist in Spain to have been named an ACM Distinguished Scientist and a member of the CHI Academy. She is also Fellow of the ACM, the European Association of Artificial Intelligence and of the IEEE. She holds an Honorary Doctorate from the Miguel Hernandez University. She is the youngest Fellow at the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering and a member of the Academia Europea.

Núria’s work and professional trajectory has received several awards, including the MIT TR35 Young Innovator Award (2004), the Rising Talent award by the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society (2009), the European Digital Woman of the Year award (2016), the Medal to Business and Social Merit by the Valencian Government (2017), the Spanish National Computer Science Award (Angela Ruiz Robles category, 2016), the Engineer of the Year by the COIT (2018) and the Data Scientist of the Year Award (2019). She has also been named one of the 11 most influential people on AI in the world by Pioneering Minds (2017), a “wonderful mind in technology” in Spain by EL PAIS newspaper (2017), “an outstanding female director in technology” (El PAIS, 2012), one of “100 leaders for the future” (Capital, 2009) and one of the “40 youngsters who will mark the next millennium” (El PAIS, 1999).

Her passion is to improve people’s quality of life, both individually and collectively, through technology. She is also passionate about scientific outreach. Hence, she regularly collaborates with the media (press, radio, TV) and gives non-technical talks about science and technology to broad audiences, and particularly to teenagers, with a special interest on girls. Her TEDx, WIRED and similar talks have been viewed thousands of times.