Travel: FLAIRS Conference Experience for Workforce Development in Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) permeates many aspects of our lives. With this growth - accelerated in the last year through the popularity of platforms such as ChatGPT - industry and academia have put a premium on recruiting students and employees that can design, implement, test, and use A.I. models and approaches. Unfortunately, tied somewhat to the need for more students in the general field of computer science, there is a lack of skilled workers in the field of A.I. In addition, the lack of diversity in the computational fields, especially when it comes to women and minorities, has led to a lack of diversity in the thought and design of A.I. systems, introducing bias into models and systems. However, providing exposure to A.I. can be problematic, especially for students from economically disadvantaged or rural communities and institutions. In short, there is a need for concerted efforts to recruit a diverse set of students and workers to the growing field of artificial intelligence. This project will support the participation of a diverse set of students to attend the second oldest artificial intelligence conference in the United States, the Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society (FLAIRS) conference, in May 2024. The objective of this proposal is to serve the NSF’s interest in advancing science through increasing interest and workforce development in artificial intelligence. The plan is to host 15 who represent a diverse demographic, especially among women, minorities, and persons with disabilities, from multiple universities, including those that consist primarily of economically disadvantaged students. The students can participate in a range of tutorials and engage with researchers and others in the field. A clear plan focuses on universities and colleges in the southeast region of the US. Clear evaluation is provided. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.