top of page

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

TRACK 2   |   The voice and personality of your application

Moderated by Emmett Coin, AI R&D, ejTalk

Monday  |  10:00 - 10:45 

TRACK 1   |   Holding effective automated conversations

Moderated by Nancy Jamison, Principal Analyst - Information & Communications Technologies, Frost & Sullivan

TRACK 2   |   Where AI fits in conversational technology

Moderated by Deborah Dahl, Principal, Conversational Technologies

Monday  | 11:00 - 12:00

TRACK 1   |   The state of conversational applications

Moderated by Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, SiriusXM

TRACK 2   |   Making key design choices

Moderated by Jim Larson, Vice President, Larson Technical Services

  • Voice + Visual: Building the right team for multimodal design, Nandini Stocker, Sr. Product Design Manager, Flipkart

  • Chatbots: Getting to Level 4 and Beyond, Peter Voss, CEO/ Chief Scientist, Aigo.ai Inc

  • 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

TRACK 2   |   Advances in conversational systems

Moderated by Alex Rudnicky, Research Professor, Carnegie Mellon University

Monday  | 2:30 - 3:15

TRACK 1   |   Digital Assistants in the Enterprise

Moderated by William Meisel, President, TMA Associates

TRACK 2   |   Building effective conversational systems

Moderated by Michael McTear, Professor, Ulster University

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

TRACK 2   |   Advances in voice technology

Moderated by Deborah Dahl, Principal, Conversational Technologies

Monday  | 4:45 - 5:30

TRACK 1   |   Best Practices in developing conversational systems

Moderated by Bill Scholz, President, AVIOS

  • Building Skills that Retain Customer, Joe Muoio, Solutions Architect, Amazon 

  • 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

  • Talk or Tap: Who's on First?, Lisa Falkson, Senior VUI Designer, Amazon

  • 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

  • Victoria Livschitz, Founder and CTO, Grid Dynamics

  • Phil Gray, EVP, Corporate Development, Interactions

  • Ahmet Gyger, Director of Product Management, Salesforce 

  • 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

TRACK 2   |   Chatbots: Studies in data creation and trust

Moderated by  Anna Wichansky, Senior Director, Oracle Design Research

Tuesday  |  10:15 - 11:00

TRACK 1   |   Best practices in conversational systems

Moderated by William Meisel, President, TMA Associates

  • Ambient Computing, Natural Language Processing, and the role of Digital Assistants, Daniel Myers, Developer Advocate, Google

  • 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

Tuesday  |  11:15 - 12:15

TRACK 1   |   Conversational interaction through multiple channels

Moderated by Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, SiriusXM

TRACK 2   |   Speech recognition in noisy environments

Moderated by Emmett Coin, AI R&D, ejTalk

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

TRACK 2   |   Natural language tools: A wide range of options

Moderated by Marie Meteer, Senior Research Scientist, Pryon

Tuesday  |  2:30 - 3:30

TRACK 1   |   Developing innovative conversational applications

Moderated by Deborah Dahl, Principal, Conversational Technologies

TRACK 2   |   Building conversational systems that engage users

Moderated by Alex Rudnicky, Research Professor, Carnegie Mellon University

Tuesday  |  3:45 - 4:30

TRACK 1   |   Experience with deployed conversational systems

Moderated by Bill Scholz, President, AVIOS

TRACK 2   |   Creative improvements to the user experience

Moderated by Lorin Wilde, Academic Advocate, IBM Global University Programs, IBM Research Yorktown 

Tuesday  |  4:30 - 5:00

Networking Reception in Bayshore Foyer - Share conference insights with colleagues

  

bottom of page