By: CIFAR
28 Sep, 2022
DLRL 2022: That’s a wrap, and a return to in-person learning in 2023
September 28, 2022
For five days at the end of July, more than 100 attendees from dozens of countries Zoomed into the Canadian AI ecosystem for a fast-paced week of workshops and networking.
The annual Deep Learning + Reinforcement Learning (DLRL) Summer School attracts graduate students, postdocs, and AI professionals from around the world for intensive instruction in foundational research, new developments, and real-world applications of deep learning and reinforcement learning, along with a behind-the-scenes tour of Canada’s buzzing AI ecosystem.
Each year, Canadian and international trainees enter a highly competitive application process, vying to participate in DLRL’s jam-packed schedule of networking events and talks by some of the world’s greatest minds in AI. This year’s agenda also featured the school’s largest-ever virtual career fair, with 19 sponsors and partners who nimbly adapted to the online format to showcase their work in AI and discuss opportunities for top global talent to join their teams.
Missed DLRL this year? Check out our curated DLRL video playlist featuring talks by Yoshua Bengio, Animesh Garg, Mijung Park, Dhanya Sridhar and Adam White on topics ranging from machine learning for scientific discovery to causality, privacy-preserving deep learning, off-policy reinforcement learning and better experiments in reinforcement learning.
2022 marked the third year that DLRL was completely online, hosted by CIFAR in partnership with Canada’s three national AI institutes (Amii in Edmonton, Mila in Montreal and the Vector Institute in Toronto). Happily, next year’s school will once again be held in person at Mila in Montreal, returning to a cycle of yearly hosting by the three institutes who showcase their cities’ bustling AI communities with additional experiences and tours for prospective students and faculty.
“DLRL was an amazing event,” says Ismail Geles, who is now working on his Master’s at ETH Zürich, studying the use of reinforcement learning for autonomous drones. “It made it clear how much emphasis Canada puts on advancing AI research, which is exciting. The lectures and faculty mixers included lots of valuable advice for early-stage researchers, which will definitely impact my views and approach to new scientific discoveries as my career progresses. Canada has so many great researchers in the field of AI to supervise you as a student and guide you as a young, passionate researcher, which is why I am definitely considering a move to Canada for my doctoral studies.”
Comments Elissa Strome, Executive Director of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy at CIFAR: “This year’s DLRL Summer School gave us another opportunity to be inspired by the amazing trainees that came together from all over the globe to learn virtually from our world-class speakers and from each other. Looking ahead to next year, we’re excited to continue to evolve our program and return to the organic learning and relationship-building opportunities offered by the in-person experience.”
Join the DLRL email list for advance news of the 2023 DLRL Summer School in Montreal.
CIFAR and the institutes extend our deep thanks to the 2022 CIFAR Deep Learning & Reinforcement Learning Summer School Sponsors:
Accenture
AMD
ATB
Borealis AI
DeepMind
Google
Layer 6
Manulife
MDA
National Research Council
Ontario Power Generation
Radical Ventures
Roche
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