Introducing IFIP Technical Committee (TC12) Artificial Intelligence
By Professor Elize Ehlers, UJ
IFIP Technical Committee 12 was established in 1989 and is one of 13 technical committees of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). TC12 has as its aim to “foster the development and understanding of Artificial Intelligence and its applications worldwide” as is stated on the official IFIP TC12 website. TC12 is currently chaired by Prof Eunika Mercier-Laurent (France) with vice-chair Prof Nenad Stefanovic (Serbia). Prof Mercier-Laurent was elected in 2019 and she will chair the committee for a term of 3 years.
Prof Mercier-Laurent sees her role in the next couple of years as expanding the committee’s conference programme and strengthening the working groups the roles of which are explained below.
TC12 consists of members representing national computer societies of more than 30 countries. These countries include, amongst others, Australia, Belgium, China, France, Germany, Japan, Norway, Portugal, South Africa , the United Kingdom and the USA. IITPSA represents South Africa on IFIP. The representatives represent their country’s national societies in matters pertaining to Artificial Intelligence and related technologies. Currently ethics in Artificial Intelligence is a very important topic. Technical Committee members meet annually at a premium international Artificial Intelligence Conference to discuss current matters of importance in Artificial Intelligence.
A number of Working Groups also function under the auspices of TC12.
Each Working Group works in an area of interest in Artificial Intelligence. Currently there are 8 active Working Groups each run by a management committee consisting of a chairperson, co-chairperson and a number of members from across the globe doing research in the particular area. Working Groups currently organise peer reviewed conferences and workshops on specialised conferences annually. Interested researchers submit papers to such events and in this way indicate their interest in the area and in maybe becoming a member of the group. Currently only one or two South Africans are members of TC12 Working Groups.
The 8 Working Groups currently active are:
WG 12.1. Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
WG 12.2. Machine Learning and Data Mining
WG 12.3. Intelligent Agents
WG 12.5. Artificial Intelligence Applications
WG 12.6. Knowledge Management.
WG 12.7. Social Networking Semantics and Collective Intelligence
WG 12.9. Computational Intelligence
WG 12.10. Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science
Additional information on the committee’s history, working groups, international events, and much more can be found on the TC12 Artificial Intelligence website https://www.ifiptc12.org/
Prof Elize Ehlers (University of Johannesburg) is the South African Representative to IFIP TC 12 and she also currently serves as the Secretary of TC12.
For further information visit https://www.iitpsa.org.za/ifip-member/
