IBM Watson’s chief data scientist Romeo Kienzler is to visit Qatar this week to conduct a workshop on Watson, a question-answering platform that can “think like a human”.
Mr Kienzler will be a guest of the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), a research institute at Hamad bin Khalifa University, which is jointly holding a new event called QCRI-IBM Data Science Connect.

On Wednesday he will introduce a session on the Cognitive Internet of Things using Watson and will then run a hands-on workshop on cognitive IoT using Watson and ApacheSpark.

Watson, which was specifically developed by IBM to answer questions on the quiz show Jeopardy, is capable of answering questions posed in natural language.

According to IBM, the cognitive technology can analyze and interpret data to provide personalized recommendations by understanding a user’s personality, tone and emotion. Users can create chat bots that can engage in dialogue.

QCRI Executive Director Ahmed Elmagarmid said pioneering platforms like Watson brought artificial intelligence to the masses.

“Machine learning and big data when combined provide insights previously undreamt of. The infinite possibilities of the IoTs are made even more powerful using transformative tools like Watson,” Dr Elmagarmid said.

“We at QCRI are proud to be part of this discussion with IBM Watson.”

During Wednesday’s event, QCRI scientists Zoi Kaoudi and Jorge-Arnulfo Quiane-Ruiz will also present a session on their cross-platform machine learning system ML4all. Ji Lucas and Abdelkader Lattab will also present Forecast and Analytics of Social Media and Traffic (FAST) and Artificial Intelligence for Digital Response (AIDR) technologies. Marco Serafini will also present a session on Arabesque, QCRI’s system for distributed graph mining.

The QCRI-IBM Data Science Connect event will be held the Hamad bin Khalifa University Research Complex ground level multi-purpose room on Wednesday, November 16 from 12.30pm. Bookings are essential and can be done by clicking here.