Welcome to our October 2022 monthly digest, where you can catch up with any AIhub stories you may have missed, get the low-down on recent events, and much more. This month, we learn about a Nigerian sign language dataset, hear from researchers working on different robotic control projects, and dig into the latest governmental AI policies. Steven Kolawole created a pioneering dataset for Nigerian sign language, in collaboration with a TV sign language broadcaster and two schools in Nigeria. He used this dataset of over 8000 images to create a model to convert sign language to text or speech. In this interview, Steven told us about the goals of this research, his methodology, and how the work has inspired research in other languages.

The 31st International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the 25th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJACI-ECAI 2022) will be held from 23-29 July, in Vienna. This will be primarily an in-person event, with an online component available. The conference will feature workshops and tutorials, keynote speakers, talks, posters, demos, panel discussions, competitions and social events. There are eight keynote speakers: Gerhard Widmer, AI & Music: On the Role of AI in Studying a Human Art Form Tim Miller, Are the inmates still running the asylum? Explainable AI is dead, long live Explainable AI! Pete Wurman, Training the world's best Gran Turismo racer Jérôme Lang, From AI to social choice Sumit Gulwani, AI-assisted programming Judea Pearl, What is Causal Inference and Where is Data Science Going?

We're pleased to announce that we will be giving a tutorial on science communication for AI researchers at IJCAI-ECAI this year. This will be held in person on 25 July (the afternoon session). If you are attending the conference and fancy finding out how you can communicate your research to a general audience in different formats, then please do sign up to join us. One of the challenges facing the field of AI is its portrayal in the media, which leads to misconceptions among policy makers, business leaders, and the general public alike. By communicating about AI in a clear, informed, and measured manner we can help to combat the flow of misinformation and convey the reality of today's technology.

Submissions are invited for the 31st International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the 23rd European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-ECAI 2022), which is planned to be held in Vienna, Austria, from July 23rd to July 29th, 2022. Starting from 1969, IJCAI has remained the premier conference bringing together the international AI community to communicate the advances and achievements of artificial intelligence research. Submissions to IJCAI-ECAI 22 should report on significant, original, and previously unpublished results on any aspect of artificial intelligence. Papers on novel AI research problems, on AI techniques for novel application domains, and papers that cross discipline boundaries within AI are especially encouraged. A selection of the best papers submitted to IJCAI-ECAI 2022 will be invited for a fast track in Artificial Intelligence and/or the Journal of AI Research.

The IJCAI-ECAI 2022 Survey Track enables the AI community to learn from AI researchers who are experts on a topic by providing them with the opportunity to give a talk presenting a synthetic survey of that topic. Papers accepted to the Survey Track will be published in the IJCAI-ECAI 2022 proceedings. At least one author of each accepted paper is required to register for the conference to present the work. We are looking forward to the community meeting in person. At the same time, we are also closely observing the global public health situation.