From 17 to 19 June 2019, the XVII Workshop of the Istituto di Calcolo e Reti ad Alte Prestazione (ICAR) of the National Research Council (CNR) will be held in Sicily, in Sant’Alessio Siculo (ME), on the beautiful coast of Taormina. The annual appointment will take stock of the state of research in progress, the results achieved, and future strategies. Moreover, this year, a full day will also be dedicated to the new challenges of artificial intelligence, with the participation of renowned scientists.

The works will be opened by the director of the Cnr-Icar, Giuseppe De Pietro, with a detailed report on the planning of the research activity and a vision for future projects oriented towards increasingly ambitious objectives, to improve the development strategies of the institution.

The second day, entitled “Artificial Intelligence: Challenges and Applications” will be entirely dedicated to the new frontiers of Artificial Intelligence (AI), that are revolutionizing every area of knowledge and changing our lifestyles.

The first to intervene will be Salvatore Gaglio, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Palermo and member of the Commission of 30 experts, chosen by the Ministry of Economic Development, to elaborate the national strategy on artificial intelligence. Professor Gaglio, who is also an associate researcher at Cnr-Icar, will focus on the various aspects of the research, with particular reference to the strategic initiatives that will characterize research in Italy in the coming years. Leandro Pecchia, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Warwick (UK), will present the latest developments in artificial intelligence in the medical and biomedical fields. Marco Gori, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Siena and associate researcher of Cnr-Icar, will address the issue from learning through the latest generation neural networks. Plamen Angelov, Professor in Intelligent system at the University of Lancaster (UK), will explain how the machines of the future will learn more and more human behaviors and abilities. Brian Scassellati, Professor of Computer science, cognitive science and mechanical engineering at the University of Yale (USA), will close the session with a fascinating exposition on techniques and methods of artificial intelligence for the construction of teacher robots.

The event also included a round table where the models of cooperation between the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) institutes of the CNR will be discussed. In addition to the director of the Cnr-Icar, participants will be Domenico Laforenza, Cnr-Iit director; Paolo Giuseppe Ravazzini, director Cnr-Ieiit and Giovanni Rinaldi, director of CNR-Iasi.