Dissemination news
In this section you will find all the news of the association connected to the computational linguistics popularization
The Language of Siri
In October 2020, the 18th edition of the Genova Popular Science Festival took place. In the context of this event, AILC presented on 22 and 23 October the dissemination workshop “Il linguaggio di Siri” (The language of Siri).
The activities presented aimed at introducing high school students to (computational) linguistics. The workshop focused on highlighting possibilities and limits of the computational representation and analysis of language, with interactive games, quizes, and concrete examples of computational modeling of linguistic problems.
The (online) workshop was attended by 5 classes from high schools from Genoa and its surroundings, for a total of about 150 people, including students and teachers. The feedback received will allow us to bring our scientific dissemination activities to a level that is increasingly suited to the needs and interests of students in the future.
The workshop was created by Ludovica Pannitto, Lucia Busso, Claudia Roberta Combei, Mirko Lai, Lucio Messina, and Malvina Nissim.
For a detailed analysis of the themes presented at the Festival, please refer to these slides (in Italian).
AILC @ Festival di Genova 2020
On the 22nd and 23rd of October 2020, as part of the 18th edition of the popular science event “Festival della Scienza di Genova”, AILC will present a workshop entitled “Il linguaggio di Siri (The language of Siri)”.
Our activities are aimed at introducing high-school students to (computational) linguistics. Concrete examples of computational modelling of language tasks as well as interactive games will be employed to illustrate the opportunities and the limits of language analysis and representation.
The laboratory was designed and built by Ludovica Pannitto, Lucia Busso, Claudia Roberta Combei, Mirko Lai, Lucio Messina, and Malvina Nissim.
Further details on the topics presented at the festival are available in this presentation presentation (in Italian).
AILC @ SISSA, Student Day 2020
On 13 February the Italian Association of Computational Linguistics participated in the Student Day of the International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste. Its aim was to introduce fourth and fifth year’s students to research in the field of computational linguistics and to its key role in technological advancement.
During the event SISSA hosted more than 500 students from various secondary schools in the Triveneto area. This annual appointment aims at making boys and girls discover the practical applications of science, thanks to the testimonials offered by its protagonists, the researchers, in one of the most prestigious scientific institutes on the Italian territory.
In this context, AILC proposed the interactive presentation “Hey Siri, what is computational linguistics?”, combining historical and theoretical notions regarding computational linguistics with a practical demonstration of the statistical properties of language.
At the end of the presentation, which was extremely successful, an informative session took place to introduce students to the educational offers of various Italian institutes and universities active in this area.
Thanks in particular to Gabriele Sarti for giving the talk on behalf of AILC at this event. We would also like to thank to the other PhD students and young researchers who contribute to the dissemination activities of the Association: Ludovica Pannitto, Lucia Busso, Roberta Combei, and Alessio Miaschi .
AILC is in BergamoScienza!
As a part of the XVII edition of the “Bergamo Scienza” scientific dissemination festival, AILC organized a workshop entitled “Do not say málvísindi if you do not have it in the bag”, aimed at boys and girls from the eighth grade upwards, to approach them to (computational) linguistics.
The intent of the laboratory is to provide concrete and tangible examples of computational modeling of linguistic problems, which highlight the possibilities and limitations related to the analysis and representation of language: through the solution of various puzzles, participants and participants will be challenged with Markov chains, analyzing syntactic and automatic translation, arriving at the solution of a thorny enigma.
The Laboratory was conceived and organized by Lucia Busso, Ludovica Pannitto and Roberta Combei.