💬 “Overall the engagement of computer science in sustainable development has really been slow to start and less strong than I believe it should be.” @Bistra Dilkina

This is a conversation with Bistra Dilkina

🎙️ Bistra is Associate Professor of Computer Science and co-Director of Center on AI in Society at University of Southern California. She works on developing scalable solution techniques for solving large-scale real-world optimization problems. To do this she merges ideas from algorithm design, operations research and machine learning. Bistra is keen on bringing these state-of-the-art methodologies to problem domains that have important societal impact. In particular, she works on predictive and optimization problems related to wildlife conservation planning and anti-poaching, among others.

The University of Southern California Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society (USC CAIS) has a mission is to conduct research in Artificial Intelligence to help solve the most difficult social problems facing our world. When they consider what problems to tackle, they focus their efforts on low resource communities in the United States and globally. They draw inspiration from the Grand Challenges of Social Work, the Grand Challenges of Engineering, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Based on these goals, their initial projects focus on ending homelessness, fighting substance abuse, preventing suicide, improving access to health care, social responses to global climate change, reducing gang violence, and protecting wildlife.

This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.