My encounter with the pioneers of AI at AAAI-2017!

Albert Einstein rightly said that “The only source of knowledge is experience”, and at AAAI-2017, I’ve had the best experience of my entire life. This was the first time I attended a conference so awe-inspiring and plush. I must indeed thank the ACM-Women foundation for making my dreams come true. I am a junior undergraduate at Indian Institute of Information Technology- Sri City, India. I’ve been working in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP) from the past two years, under the guidance of my professor, Dr. Amitava Das. I was extremely enthralled when one of my posters was accepted at AAAI. With ACM-W supporting my travel funds I was all bucked up to travel from India to San Francisco, to present by work in one of the most venerated AI conferences in the world. I was pervaded with mixed feelings of elating joy on the one side, and fervent anxiousness and fear on the other. This was the first time I was travelling to the US . However, now my whole memory of San Francisco and AAAI comes back to be as a bundle of beaming joy and cheerful memories. In a weeks stay at San Francisco, I met many eminent professors, made a horde of new amazing friends and learnt a great deal about the current research works in Artificial Intelligence. Moreover, the conference, was not just a treasure of knowledge and technology but an arena for fun and entertainment too. I had a whale of a time at the games night organised by Michael L. Littman, the energy in the hall that night was breathtaking. I also had the opportunity to dine with Professor Boi Faltings from EPFL-Switzerland through AAAI’s lunch with fellow programme. I thoroughly enjoyed the poster and demo sessions and was more than thrilled to expound my works to pioneers in my field of research. I was also glad to have a quick chat with my ACM mentor Hang Ma who gave me deeper insights about research and future career paths. Despite being packed by a tight schedule, I managed to visit to major tourist spots in San Francisco including the Golden Gate bridge and park, Alcatraz island, Lombard street and Dolores park.