In the Heart of Silicon Valley
2020 CONFERENCE PROGRAM - HELD FEBRUARY 10 & 11
Monday | 8:00 - 8:45
OPENING KEYNOTE: Breaking Human Interaction Barriers ---- AI, HoloLens and Beyond
Xuedong Huang, Technical Fellow and Chief Speech Scientist, Microsoft
Don’t miss a thing in the Age of Experiences. Come check out how new AI technology from Microsoft empowers multilingual conversations with anyone, anywhere, and at any time. Dr. Huang will talk about bringing together intelligent cloud to intelligent edge with a better-together solution, transfer learning bringing in dramatic improvements and Exchange-To-Exchange (E2E) optimization in Speech Recognition, Text-to-Speech and Machine translation. He will also share how MS amplifies human capabilities with HoloLens and Azure AI to break language, location and time barriers.
Monday | 9:00 - 9:45
TRACK 1 | The opportunity and its challenges
Moderated by Lorin Wilde, Academic Advocate, IBM Global University Programs, IBM Research Yorktown
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Leveraging the voice revolution to strengthen your brand, Phillip Lam, Product Operations Manager, Aiqudo
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Creating an Ethics Policy for Your Artificial Workforce, Robert Harris, President, Communications Advantage, and Martha Buyer, Attorney
TRACK 2 | The voice and personality of your application
Moderated by Emmett Coin, AI R&D, ejTalk
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Failing gracefully: adaptive/cooperative language design for social robots, Alison Rush, Computational Linguist, SoftBank Robotics America
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Conveying Personalized Recommendations through VUIs, Eunice Liu, Conversation Designer, Google
Monday | 10:00 - 10:45
TRACK 1 | Holding effective automated conversations
Moderated by Nancy Jamison, Principal Analyst - Information & Communications Technologies, Frost & Sullivan
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Situational Design: Making the Shift to Ambient Computing, Joe Muoio, Solutions Architect, Amazon
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Interactive Media Contextual Analysis Platform, Yakov Kamen, CEO, Relevad Corporation
TRACK 2 | Where AI fits in conversational technology
Moderated by Deborah Dahl, Principal, Conversational Technologies
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Making a silk purse from a sow’s ear: getting actionable answers from enterprise documents, Marie Meteer, Senior Research Scientist, Pryon
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AI based Digital Assistant : Compliance in Banking, Bhagvan Kommadi, CEO, Quantica Computacao
Monday | 11:00 - 12:00
TRACK 1 | The state of conversational applications
Moderated by Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, SiriusXM
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Making Voice Your Biggest Brand Opportunity, Shing Pan, VP Business Development, Speech Morphing
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Conversations are the New Applications, Somya Kapoor, CEO of theloops.ai
TRACK 2 | Making key design choices
Moderated by Jim Larson, Vice President, Larson Technical Services
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Voice + Visual: Building the right team for multimodal design, Nandini Stocker, Sr. Product Design Manager, Flipkart
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Chatbots: Getting to Level 4 and Beyond, Peter Voss, CEO/ Chief Scientist, Aigo.ai Inc
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Culture Through Conversational AI: How to intentionally build assistants that reflect your culture and values, Charles Stewart, Wex AI Chatbot Senior Program Manager, Workday
Monday | 12:00 - 1:15
Lunch in Cascade Ballroom
Monday | 1:15 - 2:15
TRACK 1 | Effective conversational customer service
Moderated by Marie Meteer, Senior Research Scientist, Pryon
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Connect with Customers: Messaging That Works, Sean Falconer, Developer Advocate, Google
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Customer Service AI Chatbots Need to Raise the Bar on Quality, Mike Monegan, Vice President of Product Management, Cyara
TRACK 2 | Advances in conversational systems
Moderated by Alex Rudnicky, Research Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
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How Advancements in Edge Computing Can Improve User Experience, Vineet Ganju, Vice President of Marketing, Edge Computing SoCs, Synaptics
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Tell me what you want, what you really really want, Ann Thyme-Gobbel, Voice UX/UI Designer; Charles Jankowski, Conversational Systems Expert
Monday | 2:30 - 3:15
TRACK 1 | Digital Assistants in the Enterprise
Moderated by William Meisel, President, TMA Associates
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Learnings from an Enterprise Deployment, Tim Carlson, Senior Director & AI Product Manager, Travelers
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The neglected role of Enterprise Knowledge in Conversational AI - Learnings from deployment in a leading wealth firm, Sindhu Joseph is co-founder and CEO of CogniCor LLC
TRACK 2 | Building effective conversational systems
Moderated by Michael McTear, Professor, Ulster University
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The Ground Truth Grind: Strategies for Evaluating the Quality of Labeled Data, Teresa O'Neill, Solutions Architect, NLP, iMerit
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Is your virtual assistant really intelligent?, Audrey Wu, VP of Strategic Partnerships, Haptik
Monday | 3:15 - 3:45
Refreshment Break in Bayshore Foyer
Monday | 3:45 - 4:30
TRACK 1 | The evolution of digital assistants
Moderated by Nancy Jamison, Principal Analyst - Information & Communications Technologies, Frost & Sullivan
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2020 Virtual Assistants Predictions, Yi Zhang, CTO, Rulai, & Professor, UC Santa Cruz
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Evolution of design guidelines for enterprise grade digital assistants, Samrat Baul, Principal Conversation Design Lead, Oracle and Richard Miller, Architect, Conversational Design, Oracle
TRACK 2 | Advances in voice technology
Moderated by Deborah Dahl, Principal, Conversational Technologies
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Securing Conversational Interfaces with Zero-Effort Continuous Authentication, John Amein, Vice President, ID R&D
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Predicting The Future Through Our Voice, Rana Gujral, CEO, Behavioral Signals
Monday | 4:45 - 5:30
TRACK 1 | Best Practices in developing conversational systems
Moderated by Bill Scholz, President, AVIOS
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Building Skills that Retain Customer, Joe Muoio, Solutions Architect, Amazon
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Revisiting the Conversation, Phillip Hunter, Senior Principal Designer, [24]7 AI and Susan Hura, CEO, Banter Technology
TRACK 2 | Challenges in conversational interaction
Moderated by Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, SiriusXM
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Talk or Tap: Who's on First?, Lisa Falkson, Senior VUI Designer, Amazon
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Avatars 101, David Colleen, CEO, SapientX
Monday | 5:30 - 7:00
Welcome Reception sponsored by Interactions and Grid Dynamics
Tuesday | 7:00 - 8:00
Continental Breakfast in Cascade Ballroom
Tuesday | 8:00 - 9:00
KEYNOTE PANEL: Building a digital assistant or chatbot--What works and what doesn't
Moderated by William Meisel, President, TMA Associates
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Victoria Livschitz, Founder and CTO, Grid Dynamics
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Phil Gray, EVP, Corporate Development, Interactions
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Ahmet Gyger, Director of Product Management, Salesforce
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Igor Jablokov, CEO, Pryon
Tuesday | 9:15 - 10:00
TRACK 1 | Conversational technology in customer service and marketing
Moderated by Marie Meteer, Senior Research Scientist, Pryon
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"Are you being served?" The Virtual Assistant as Shopping Advisor, Lisa Michaud, Senior Product Manager, Interactions
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As important as a web site? Company-specific digital assistants are effective and necessary, William Meisel, President, TMA Associates
TRACK 2 | Chatbots: Studies in data creation and trust
Moderated by Anna Wichansky, Senior Director, Oracle Design Research
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One percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration: Collecting and processing user utterances for enterprise chatbots, Anna Wichansky, Senior Director & Jayson Webb, Senior Manager of User Research, Oracle
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Taking the Chatbot's Word for it? Trust with Enterprise Chatbots, Anna Wichansky, Senior Director & Sneha Kanneganti, Senior Design Researcher, Oracle
Tuesday | 10:15 - 11:00
TRACK 1 | Best practices in conversational systems
Moderated by William Meisel, President, TMA Associates
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Ambient Computing, Natural Language Processing, and the role of Digital Assistants, Daniel Myers, Developer Advocate, Google
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What are the challenges in teaching conversational machines?, Heloisa Candello, Research Scientist, IBM Research
TRACK 2 | Building conversational systems
Moderated by Jim Larson, Vice President, Larson Technical Services
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Flower Genie: how to build cool and useful Alexa-enabled e-commerce applications using Dialog Flow, Victoria Livschitz, Founder and CTO, Grid Dynamics
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Using Natural Language Search to Turbocharge your Chatbots, Praful Krishna, CEO, Coseer
Tuesday | 11:15 - 12:15
TRACK 1 | Conversational interaction through multiple channels
Moderated by Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, SiriusXM
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Multi Device Conversational Assistants, Elnaz Nouri, Senior Applied Scientist, Microsoft Research
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Toward interoperable conversational applications: new standards efforts in conversational interaction, Deborah Dahl, Principal, Conversational Technologies
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Multimodal Communication with Computers and Robots, James Pustejovsky, Professor, Volen National Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University
TRACK 2 | Speech recognition in noisy environments
Moderated by Emmett Coin, AI R&D, ejTalk
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Enabling speech recognition in noisy environments, Adithya Padala, President & CEO, UmeVoice Inc.
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Intelligent Voice User Interface for Apps, Dashen Fan, CEO, VUI.AI
Tuesday | 12:15 - 1:30
Lunch in Cascade Ballroom
Tuesday | 1:30 - 2:15
TRACK 1 | Learning from deployed conversational systems
Moderated by Lisa Michaud, Senior Product Manager, Interactions
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How to Use NLU to Get Great CX, Leslie Walker, Associate Director, Human Factors, Concentrix
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Do we really need a conversational interface? Some challenges in designing for conversational interaction, Michael McTear, Professor, Ulster University
TRACK 2 | Natural language tools: A wide range of options
Moderated by Marie Meteer, Senior Research Scientist, Pryon
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Deeper Conversational AI for Education, Training, and HR Automation, Dee Kanejiya, Founder & CEO, Cognii
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Got Data? The role of analytics in conversational interfaces, Arte Merritt, CEO / Co-founder, Dashbot
Tuesday | 2:30 - 3:30
TRACK 1 | Developing innovative conversational applications
Moderated by Deborah Dahl, Principal, Conversational Technologies
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Conversational Voice for daily operations at Oil & Gas Industry, Ramu Sunkara, CEO, Founder, Alan AI, Inc
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Techniques to personalize conversations for virtual assistants, Jagadish Reddy Nomula, Founder, Voicy.AI
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Think Fast! Using Heuristics in Virtual Assistants, Brandon Sax, Product Design Lead for Xfinity Assistant, Comcast
TRACK 2 | Building conversational systems that engage users
Moderated by Alex Rudnicky, Research Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
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Conversation-First Design, Robert Moore, Research Scientist, IBM Research | Almaden
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Best Practices in developing conversational systems, Jyo Gadewadikar, Chief Product Officer— Conversational AI, Deloitte and Vatatmaja, Specialist Leader, Analytics and Cognitive, Deloitte
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Building chat automation and conversational systems to engage users and drive customer loyalty, Marina Shumaieva, President and CTO, CruiseBe
Tuesday | 3:45 - 4:30
TRACK 1 | Experience with deployed conversational systems
Moderated by Bill Scholz, President, AVIOS
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Augmented Reality (AR) Enabled Conversational AI for 3D Model Interaction, Lukman Akanbi, Deputy Director, University of the West of England
TRACK 2 | Creative improvements to the user experience
Moderated by Lorin Wilde, Academic Advocate, IBM Global University Programs, IBM Research Yorktown
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Always empathic but never biased, Wolf Paulus, Principal Engineer, Intuit
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One Wug Or Two? Or How I Started Thinking About Empathy, Feelings and Design Thinking for Voice, Damien Dabrowski, Sr. VUI Designer, Amazon
Tuesday | 4:30 - 5:00
Networking Reception in Bayshore Foyer - Share conference insights with colleagues