Anthill Inside 2019

Format:

Anthill Inside 2019 is a single track conference. Birds of Feather (BOF) sessions, round table discussions and office hours with speakers will be held in parallel with talks in the main auditorium.

We are accepting proposals for:

1. Full-length (40 min) and crisp (20 min) talks.
2. Birds of Feather (BOF) sessions – of 1 hour duration – on focussed topics.
3. Tutorials, explaining core concepts in DL, ML and AI. Tutorials are of 1.5 hours to 2 hours duration.
4. Hands-on workshops on Machine Learning, statistics, modelling, deep learning, NLP and Computer Vision.

Audience at Anthill Inside:

1. Data scientists
2. Senior AI engineers
3. Architects
4. Product managers
5. Product engineers
6. Founders and key decision makers from startups, mid-sized organizations and enterprises who are solving problems/facing challenges around running/managing infrastructure for AI and ML.
7. Providers of managed services such as AWS, Google Cloud and Azure.
8. GPU and CPU solution providers such as NVidia, Intel and others.

Topics for submitting talks, workshops, tutorials and BOF sessions:

1. Practical application of concepts, including:
   1.1 Bayesian Networks
   1.2 Reinforcement learning
   1.3 Knowledge Graphs
   1.4 Interpretability

2. Data storage case studies: we are specifically interested in hearing about:
   2.1 What do you do with data that has lost its currency?
   2.2. How do you deal with privacy issues for vast amounts of irrelevant data?

3. Tools for AI, ML and Deep Learning. Here, we want to hear about:
   3.1 Whether you use third-party tools? If yes, why?
   3.2 Do you adopt and retrofit existing tools? Again, why? Give us a detailed case study.
   3.3 Do you develop tools for AI/ML/DL in-house? Why are in-house tools necessary for your case?

4. Storing data on the cloud and cloud strategy.
   4.1 Do you have a multi-cloud strategy? Share this with the community.
   4.2 How do you deal with lock-in situations with single providers?

5. GPU versus CPU – when you do use either and why? How do the strengths and limitations of each play out for your use case?

6. Case studies of practical applications of Computer Vision, NLP and Deep Learning to solve business problems.

Anthill Inside’s speaking policies:

We only accept one speaker per talk. This is non-negotiable. Workshops or tutorials may have more than one instructor.

Selection criteria:

The first filter for a proposal is whether the technology or solution you are referring to is open source or not. The following criteria apply for closed source talks:

1. If the technology or solution is proprietary, and you want to speak about your propritary solution to make a pitch to the audience, you should pick up sponsored session. This involves paying for the speaking slot. Write to anthillinside.editorial@hasgeek.com for details.
2. If your solution is closed source, you should consider proposing a talk explaining why you built it in the first place; what options did you consider (business-wise and technology-wise) before making the decision to develop the solution; or, what is your specific use case that left you without existing options and necessitated creating the in-house solution.

The criteria for selecting proposals, in the order of importance, are:

1. Key insight or takeaway: what can you share with participants that will help them in their work?
2. Structure of the talk and flow of content: a detailed outline – either as mindmap or draft slides or textual decription – will help us understand the focus of the talk, and the clarity of your thought process.
3. Ability to communicate succinctly, and how you engage with the audience. You must submit link to a two-minute preview video explaining what your talk is about, and what is the key takeaway for the audience.

How to submit a proposal (and increase your chances of getting selected):

The following guidelines will help you in submitting a proposal:

1. Focus on why, not how. Explain to participants why you made a business or engineering decision, or why you chose a particular approach to solving your problem.
2. The journey is more important than the solution you may want to explain. We are interested in the journey, not the outcome alone.
3. Show what participants from other domains can learn/abstract from your journey/solution.
4. We do not accept how-to talks unless they demonstrate latest technology. If you are demonstrating new tech, show enough to motivate participants to explore the technology later.
5. Similarly, we don’t accept talks on topics that have already been covered in the previous editions.

Passes and honorarium for speakers:

We pay an honararium of Rs. 3,000 to each speaker. Confirmed speakers also get a pass to the conference. We do not provide free passes for speakers’ colleagues and spouses. Please don’t ask us for this.

Travel grants for outstation speakers:

Travel grants are available for international and domestic speakers. We evaluate each case on its merits, giving preference to women, people of non-binary gender, and Africans. If you require a grant, request it when you submit your proposal in the field where you add your location. Anthill Inside is funded through ticket purchases and sponsorships; travel grant budgets vary.

Contact details:

For information about speaking or teaching workshops at Anthill Inside, write to anthillinside.editorial@hasgeek.com or call +91 7676332020