Dear Colleagues,
The Bisan Lecture on March 19th consisted of a conversation with leaders of Palestinian Civil Society who come together to convey the story of Palestinians living, experiencing and resisting under genocide. The lecture started with a prerecorded message from Amjad Shawa the Gaza Director of the Palestinian NGO network who is currently based in Alwasta Governorate in Gaza, coordinating relief efforts between local Palestinian CSOs and International NGOS including UN organizations. He made detailed accounts of the Humanitarian conditions in Gaza including his personal experiences of displacement and living under constant bombing. Then Raji Sourani the Director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza and Shawaan Jabarin the Director of Al-Haq detailed the legal status of the Gaza Strip, the responsibilities of countries in light of the ICJ order of January 26, 2024 and how Israel has violated its obligations. The webinar concluded with a Q&A session. You can watch the video recording here.
A recent interview with Raji Sourani is available here (in French).
We are pleased to announce that the upcoming Bisan Lecture webinar will take place on April 17 at 7pm Palestine time (6pm Central European Time, 12 noon US Eastern time). We will have the pleasure to welcome Prof. David Mumford (Brown and Harvard University) who will address the following question (in English with simultaneous Arabic translation for those who wish):
Title: Are fully intelligent robots coming soon?
Note that Palestine will switch to summer time on April 20.
Palestine 7:00 PM
Paris 7:00 PM
London 6:00 PM
New York 1:00 PM
San Francisco 10:00 AM
Tokyo 2:00 AM Thursday
You can register for the webinar by clicking here!
Abstract: Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic in the midst of major successes that everyone is discussing. It is also an area that can be studied anywhere: essentially all research is publicly available at arXiv.com, software to use GPUs and Python code on PCs or Macs can be purchased. Although huge data was needed for the so-called “large language models”, many experiments can be done with small data sets, hence I believe it is a suitable topic for independent researchers. I will discuss the representation of words and thoughts in neural nets, the concept of a transformer, the need for feedback, and the amazing scaling properties of both brains and code.
Short autobiography of David Mumford: I started my career doing pure math at Harvard but had always been intrigued by the brain and AI. I pursued computer vision at Brown in the second half of my career. Oddly though, my retirement coincided with the recent spectacular advances in AI!
Awards and Recognition:
Prof. David Mumford was awarded a Fields Medal in 1974. He was a MacArthur Fellow from 1987 to 1992. He won the Shaw Prize in 2006. In 2007 he was awarded the Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition by the American Mathematical Society. In 2008 he was awarded the Wolf Prize; Mumford donated half of the prize money to Birzeit University in the Palestinian territories and half to Gisha, an Israeli organization that promotes the right to freedom of movement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In 2010 he was awarded the National Medal of Science. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
This lecture is sponsored by the Bisan Center for Research and Development and Scientists for Palestine.
In light of the urgent need to assist the people of Gaza, who are currently experiencing immeasurable loss of life and widespread devastation, please read this humanitarian aid appeal from ANERA, forwarded to us by a friend of BLS, Dr. Sara Roy of Harvard University. Hoping to see many of you at this webinar, we send you our best regards.
The Bisan Lecture Series Steering Committee
Upcoming BLS webinars
Wednesday May 8, 2024, 7 pm Palestine time
Prof. Khaled Fahmy (Tufts University)
BLS Statement of purpose In concert with Scientists for Palestine and the Bisan Center for Research and Development, and in keeping with their joint commitment to full integration of Palestine in the global community of learning, the Bisan Lecture Series sponsors discourses on subjects of cultural, scientific, and societal importance by leading research experts and public intellectuals of varied heritage and viewpoint. The interactive webinars are free and open to the public, and recordings of each will be posted soon afterward.