<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>Hi all,</div><div><br></div><div>We are very excited to announce the 3rd NeurIPS workshop on Machine Learning for the Developing World (ML4D), please see the CFP below. We'd also appreciate your help spreading the word. Thanks!</div><div><br></div><div>Maria</div><div><br></div><div><span id="gmail-m_-933175355648806386gmail-docs-internal-guid-37c559e6-7fff-8849-d3d2-ce51ec13e823"><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Call for papers: NeurIPS workshop on ML for the Developing World (ML4D)</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">*********************************************************************************</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Workshop on Machine Learning for the Developing World, NeurIPS 2019</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Date: December 13th or 14th (TBD), 2019</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Location: Vancouver, Canada</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Website: </span><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/ml4d/home" target="_blank" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-skip:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://sites.google.com/view/ml4d/home</span></a><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">*********************************************************************************</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-skip:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Call for papers</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">: </span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">For the third year in a row, NeurIPS is host to a one-day workshop focussed on machine learning for the developing world (ML4D). This year’s program will focus on the challenges and risks that arise when deploying machine learning in developing regions. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline"><font color="#000000" face="Cambria, serif" size="3"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">We invite researchers to submit their recent work on ML4D, and particularly encourage submissions that characterize challenges or risks of ML4D, propose methodology tackling existing limitations, present empirical studies that reveal unintended harms of machine learning technology in developing regions, or discuss the current state of the art and propose paths forward.</span></font></span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Please submit 2-4 page extended abstracts following the </span><a href="https://nips.cc/Conferences/2017/PaperInformation/StyleFiles" target="_blank" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-skip:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">NeurIPS style</span></a><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> guidelines. The link to the submission platform will be provided in the workshop website. Accepted papers will be presented as posters or contributed talks, and may opt-in to be published in an arXiv proceedings.</span></p><br><br><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-skip:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Key dates:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Submission deadline: September 13, 2019</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Travel/registration award deadline: September 13, 2019</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Acceptance notification: September 25, 2019</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Workshop: December 13/14 (TBD), 2019</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria;background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline">Workshop overview</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria;background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline">:</span><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><font color="#000000" face="Cambria" size="3">As the use of machine learning becomes ubiquitous, there is growing interest in understanding how machine learning can be used to tackle global development challenges. The possibilities are vast, and it is important that we explore the potential benefits of such technologies, which has driven the agenda of the ML4D workshop series in the past. However, there is a risk that technology optimism and a categorization of ML4D research as inherently “social good” may result in initiatives failing to account for unintended harms or deviating scarce funds towards initiatives that appear exciting but have no demonstrated effect. Moreover, machine learning technologies deployed in developing regions have often been created for different contexts and are trained with data that is not representative of the new deployment setting. Most concerning of all, multinational companies sometimes make the deliberate choice to deploy new technologies in countries with little regulation in order to experiment.

This year’s program will focus on the challenges and risks that arise when deploying machine learning in developing regions. This one-day workshop will bring together a diverse set of participants from across the globe to discuss essential elements for ensuring ML4D research moves forward in a responsible and ethical manner. Attendees will learn about potential unintended harms that may result from ML4D solutions, technical challenges that currently prevent the effective use of machine learning in vast regions of the world, and lessons that may be learned from other fields. 

The workshop will include invited talks, a poster session of accepted papers, breakout sessions tailored to the workshop's theme and panel discussions. We welcome paper submissions featuring novel machine learning research that characterizes or tackles challenges of ML4D, empirical papers that reveal unintended harms of machine learning technology in developing regions, and discussion papers that examine the current state of the art of ML4D and propose paths forward. </font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Cambria;font-size:12pt;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline">
</span></span></p><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria;background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline"><br></span></span></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard"><br></div></span></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Maria De-Arteaga</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">PhD Student in Machine Learning and Public Policy</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Carnegie Mellon University</span><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>