Social Programs
Event Schedule
All times are PDT, UTC-7.
| June 2–4 | whole day | Mexican NLP school and mentoring sessions |
| Sunday, June 6 | 9:00–11:00 | Black in AI social |
| Sunday, June 6 | 10:30–12:00 | Masakhane social |
| Sunday, June 6 | 15:00–16:00 | Queer in AI Undergraduate Mentorship Session |
| Sunday, June 6 | 18:30–20:00 | Queer in AI social |
| Monday, June 7 | 6:30–8:00 | Queer in AI social |
| Monday, June 7 | 13:00–14:00 | D&I Session: Inclusivity in Conferences |
| Monday, June 7 | 14:30–16:00 | LatinX in AI Social |
| Monday, June 7 | 14:30–16:00 | Getting into NLP research and grad school applications |
| Tuesday, June 8 | 6:30–8:00 | Getting into NLP research and grad school applications |
| Tuesday, June 8 | 13:00–15:00 | North Africans in NLP |
| Tuesday, June 8 | 15:00–16:00 | Mexican cultural event (Guided virtual tour) |
| Tuesday, June 8 | 15:00–16:00 | D&I Session: Give Your Time to Radical Communities, Not Your Boss |
| Wednesday, June 9 | 6:00–7:00 | Mexican cultural event (Linguistic diversity) |
| Wednesday, June 9 | 6:00–8:00 | D&I Session: (WINLP Panel) NLP Women in the Time of Corona |
| Thursday, June 10 | 6:00–7:00 | D&I Session: Intersectionality panel |
| Thursday, June 10 | 8:00–9:00 | LatinX in AI Social |
| Friday, June 11 | 7:00–8:30 | D&I session: EquiCL discussion |
Mexican NLP school and mentoring sessions
Date: June 2–4
This Summer School has the aim to 1) Strengthen the NLP training for the Latin American student community; 2) Promote the diversity of the NLP community by increasing the visibility of Mexico and the Latin American region (currently part of NAACL). The mentoring sessions are focused on undregraduate/graduate students pursuing a career in NLP.
The mentoring sessions are scheduled for Friday June 4th 11:15-13:00 (GMT-5) Mexico City Time.
Black in AI Social
Date: Sunday, June 6
Time: 9:00–11:00
Organizers: Salomey Osei, Foutse Yuehgoh, Mírian Silva
Black in AI is a place for sharing ideas, fostering collaborations and discussing initiatives to increase the presence of Black people in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Join the Black in AI social to connect with Black researchers in NLP and to learn how to get involved in this affinity group!
Masakhane Social
Date: Sunday, June 6
Time: 10:30–12:00
Organizers: Bonaventure Dossou and Chris Emezue
Masakhane is a grassroots organisation whose mission is to strengthen and spur NLP research in African languages, for Africans, by Africans. Join Masakhane’s social event to meet the amazing researchers in this community, discuss their current efforts in builing NLP tools for African languages, and learn how to support them and/or get involved!
Queer in AI Undergraduate Mentorship Session
Date: Sunday, June 6
Time: 15:00–16:00
Organizer: Arjun Subramonian
Speaker: Sabrina Mielke
The Queer in AI Undergraduate Mentorship session is part of a monthly series where Queer in AI invites notable speakers from academia and industry connect with undergraduate folks, offering them mentorship and advice to help them secure research and industry positions in machine learning.
Queer in AI Social
Session 1
Date: Sunday, June 6
Time: 18:30–20:00
Host: Michael McKenna
Speaker: Aditya Joshi
Session 2
Date: Monday, June 7
Time: 6:30–8:00
Host: Jack Dukatz
Speaker: Nikita Srivatsan
The Queer in AI social is an event for queer people and allies in AI to share their experiences, network with others and discuss queer issues in research. This social will be hosted on gather town. All event information will remain confidential to respect the privacy and safety of participants. People of all identities, including allies, are invited to attend!
D&I Session: Inclusivity in Conferences
Date: Monday, June 7
Time: 13:00–14:00
Chair: Sabine Weber
Moderator: Sabine Weber
Panelists: Naomi Saphra, Diana Galván, Hady Elsahar, Salomey Osei
The purpose of the diversity and inclusion panel is to bring together representatives from different affinity groups to discuss how NLP conferences can be made more accessible and welcoming. It is also to raise awareness for these issues with the larger community and the organisers of future conferences.
LatinX in AI Social
Session 1
Date: Monday, June 7
Time: 14:30–16:00
Chair: Diana Galván Sosa
Speakers: TBA
Session 2
Date: Thursday, June 10
Time: 8:00–9:00
Chair: Diana Galván Sosa
Speakers: TBA
This affinity social is aimed at LatinX individuals working on or interested in NLP with a goal to increase the visibility of researchers of LatinX origin in a field that has been dominated by countries such as China, USA and Germany. Those already working on NLP will have the opportunity to connect with fellow LatinX and make their own work known, while those new to the field will benefit from the scientific exchange, guidance and advice of researchers with their same background. Participants will be able to engage in discussions about NLP (formal and informal) and to share their thoughts on how to increase the presence of LatinX in NLP.
Getting into NLP research and grad school applications
Session 1 [Registration Link]
Date: Monday, June 7
Time: 14:30–16:00
Chair: Nelson Liu
Moderator: Samira Shaikh
Panelists: Abhilasha Ravichander, William Agnew, Pan Xu, Phu Mon Htut, Elizabeth Salesky
Session 2 [Registration Link]
Date: Tuesday, June 8
Time: 6:30–8:00
Chair: Khyati Mahajan
Moderator: Vlad Niculae
Panelists: Sebastian Ruder, Salomon Kabongo, Sian Gooding, Nick McKenna, Elizabeth Nielsen
The intented audience of this is pre-doctoral students and in general anyone who is looking to get into NLP research. The session is schedule to open with a brief introducion of various initiatives aimed to predoctoral researchers, followed by a 45 minutes panel with graduate students from Europe, Asia, and US moderated by a faculty member.
North Africans in NLP
Date: Tuesday, June 8
Time: 13:00–15:00
Chair: Nedjma Ousidhoum
We are an affinity group for people of North African descent who are researchers in NLP. We organize socials and panel discussion at major NLP conferences. The goal of this group is to create a sense of community among North African researchers in NLP & AI, to increase the visibility of North Africans within the #NLProc community, to highlight their accomplishments, and to acknowledge and discuss the hardships faced by North Africans in the field of NLP.
D&I Session: Give Your Time to Radical Communities, Not Your Boss
Date: Tuesday, June 8
Time: 15:00–16:00
Chair: Michael McKenna
Speaker: William Agnew
Give Your Time to Radical Communities, Not Your Boss–In this talk Willie Agnew will talk about Queer in AI’s organizing and philosophy, and argue that the time and skills people have are incredibly valuable, and if given to radical organizations, can build power and make change.
D&I Session: (WINLP Panel) NLP Women in the Time of Corona: Adaptations and Lessons for Women and Allies
Date: Wednesday, June 9
Time: 6:00–8:00
Core Organizer: WINLP chairs
Panelists: Catherine Gitau, Samira Shaikh, Rossana Cunha, Margaret Mitchell, Aloka Fernando, Libby Barak
The pandemic has hit women in every industry especially hard, resulting in significant drops in women’s presence in the workplace and challenging remaining working women in unprecedented ways, as societies grapple with the mental, social, emotional, and logistic ramifications of living through a pandemic. The NLP research community, in academia and industry, is no exception to this. At the same time, changes in how we handle remote life – both for conferences and day-to-day research and teaching – along with adaptations that we have made individually, can impact our field for the better. In this panel, we talk with women NLP researchers at various stages of career growth about what challenges they have faced, how they have adapted, and what lessons we can take moving forward to create a more inclusive and accessible research community around the world.
D&I Session: Intersectionality Panel
Date: Thursday, June 10
Time: 6:00–7:00
Chair: Vasundhara Gautam
Panelists: Alex Lu, Candace Ross, Nikita Srivatsan, Arjun Subramonian
Panel at NAACL 2021 to discuss the experiences of intersectionally marginalized folks in academia and tech. The discussion will be informed by current issues including AAPI hate, anti-trans bills, the Black Lives Matter movement, disability advocacy, hardships faced by North Africans, and so on.
D&I Session: EquiCL Discussion
Date: Friday, June 11
Time: 7:00–8:30
Chair: Marine Carpuat
Moderator: Marine Carpuat
Over the past few years, an increasing number of people have done amazing work to improve the diversity & inclusion of our conferences (e.g., as part of conference organization teams and/or grassroot efforts). This event aims to provide a forum for them to connect, share their experience and lessons learned, and discuss what can be done for others to build on prior efforts effectively. This event will be part of ongoing work by EquiCL (http://equicl.org/) to support and strengthen diversity and inclusion in the ACL community.
Mexican Cultural Events
Session 1
Date: Tuesday, June 8
Time: 15:00–16:00
Organizer: Rocío Cerbón
Join us on a guided virtual tour to the best places to visit, what to do and eat in Mexico’s capital city. We will go over to some of the most iconic and known places like the Historical Centre, Archeological Sites such as Teotihuacan and Templo Mayor. And in the south of the city, we will get to know touristic locations like Coyoacan and Xochimilco.
Session 2
Date: Wednesday, June 9
Time: 6:00–7:00
Organizer: Rocío Cerbón
This session will provide an overview of Mexico’s linguistic situation until 2020. We’ll go through the Mexican language’s diversity. We’ll learn about linguistic families, currently most spoken languages and more. At the beginning we will host a Kahoot about facts of Mexican languages, don’t miss it!