A detailed article on the Georgia Tech and Facebook partnership aimed at building diversity in the AI field appears in the January issue of University-Industry Engagement Advisor. In the initial steps of a program of collaboration with U.S. universities "that serve significant populations of Black and Latino students," Facebook has partnered with Georgia Tech to develop, co-teach, and fund graduate-level online deep learning courses. The program will be expanded in 2021 to include additional institutions. The collaboration at Georgia Tech came about through discussions between Facebook and the university's Machine Learning Center and the School of Interactive Computing, says Zsolt Kira, PhD, associate director of the Machine Learning Center at Georgia Tech and an assistant professor in the School of Interactive Computing. This is not the first collaboration between the two partners, says Paco Guzmán, research scientist manager at Facebook and a lecturer for Facebook's Co-teaching AI Program.

In an effort to expand services in machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and data science, Accenture will hold a Tech Symposium on Feb. 25 at the Machine Learning Center at Georgia Tech (ML@GT.) During the three-day event, guests will be treated to a tour of ML@GT's new home in Coda Tech Square and talks from several of ML@GT's faculty including Sehoon Ha, Zsolt Kira, Yao Xie, George Lan, Srijan Kumar, and Polo Chau. Attendees will include Accenture employees and clients from General Electric, NCR, Bank of America, and The Hershey Company. "We are thrilled to host Accenture and their clients. Accenture is a leader in strategy, digital, technology, and operations, and many of their clients are renowned for how their products and services are shaping our world. Being able to connect them with the groundbreaking work that our students and faculty are doing is a great opportunity and we are looking forward to having them on campus," said Irfan Essa, director of ML@GT.

E-commerce company Etsy announced today that it will open a new artificial intelligence research and development center in Toronto, Canada. The company broke the news yesterday during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in New York City. Etsy's third Machine Learning Center of Excellence, which follows on the heels of its Brooklyn and San Francisco locations, will play host to leading figures from local universities and Toronto's "deep pool of world-class machine learning talent," according to a statement. It will also aid in the company's efforts to recruit machine learning engineers. According to Etsy, the Canadian e-commerce market's growth was a deciding factor.