Transcription
Hello everyone. Uh, good evening from Japan. So, I we would like to begin the very first lecture of the GCI I world program.
Before I uh we begin, I would like to quickly introduce myself. My name is Erin. I'm um leader of global team at Matsuo Lab. And on behalf of all Matsuo Lab members, uh I would like to welcome all of you to GCI world program, as well as to um thank all of you for your interest and for the participation in this lecture.
So, in the next few months, we'll be working together to cover fundamentals of AI, data science, and um explore the uh practical application of those in the society. And as AI is um transforming society across the world, as we all know, what matters is not simply knowing what AI is, but also knowing how to use it effectively is extremely important. So, um I hope this course will be a starting point for unlocking your potential, as well as to deepen your understanding in AI.
So, without further ado, I would like to begin the GCI the first GCI world lecture. So, um as the very first content, I would like to introduce uh our team. So, for today, the speaker will be myself. Uh uh later, uh Professor Matsuo is going to deliver a speech and to uh encourage you guys for the the journey you're going to take for the next few months. And after that, Shudai and Aki will jump in to begin the the first lecture. And I would also like to introduce uh my team, who you will be working with. So, we have Shudai, Aki, Shun, Yui, Sari, Shu, Taiju, Shinsuke, as well as Rie, Yuna, Takashi, uh Rento, Daisuke, Jogen, Nozomi, Koki, and Taisuke. So, you'll be uh able to contact them in the Slack, and they will be uh um very happy to assist you throughout this course.
And for this um prog um so for today's lecture's overview, the goal is to clarify your learning objective and exple and we will provide explanation of various matters about our program. So, here are the agenda. We're going to first begin with opening session, overview of our program, introduction of uh Matsuo Lab, and then after that, there will be a message from sorry, from uh Professor Matsuo to uh all of you. And after that, we will begin our first lecture by starting to uh by watching a video. Um there will there will be a recap, break time, and explanation of the course logistics, grading, and hybrid session. After that, we're going to have a 15 minutes of Q&A, recap, and overview of the next lecture. I hope this is clear, and I hope all of you are excited for the very first lecture.
So, um I would like to now introduce what is doing and who we are. So, before that, please allow me to introduce Professor Yutaka Matsuo. He's the head of Matsuo Lab at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Engineering. His expertise on AI, particularly deep learning and web mining. He has been conducting research on AI for the past uh 30 years, over 30 years. And then, on top of contribution to academia, he's also contributing to government by serving as a chairperson of Prime Minister's Council of AI Strategy, as well as a member of the Council for Japan's Growth Strategy under the Prime Minister. And he's also contributing uh contributing to industry by serving as a outside director at SoftBank Group and Panasonic Holdings, as well as to society. Um he's also been recently appointed as the member of independent international scientific panel on AI at the United Nations.
So, um to begin with, I would like to uh introduce our four main activities. Matsuo Lab is a AI focused lab at the University of Tokyo, and our main activities encompasses fundamental research, advanced education, industry-driven R&D, and incubation.
So, to begin with um our first activity on fundamental research, we're conducting various research on AI, such as world model, next generation neural network, brain-inspired intelligence, robotics, large language model, and so on. Our mission is to create intelligence and discover principle of human intelligence, and our research has been published in many top-tier international conferences.
And moving on to second activity on education, we offer more than 30 AI-related lectures in four key areas. We have web engineering, data science, deep learning, and AI times entrepre AI times business. And those lectures are not um limited to students at the University of Tokyo. It's open to all students of any academic level and background for free of charge and online. And in terms of trends in um number of learners, we're experiencing exponential growth. Uh so, at the mo for the last academic year, we had over 70,000 students participating. And for this fiscal year, we are expecting the number of students to be above 200,000. And we are very uh happy to welcome all of you to be part of this 200,000 students. And as you may have already know, GCI is the most popular lecture at Matsuo Lab. It's 3-months online lecture for you to learn data science, AI, and its application in marketing. Once again, it's open to students of any academic level and background, and um we have been launching this course in uh Japan since 2014, and then for the global program, we launched our last program last Septe uh the very first program last September.
And to move on to third activity on industry-driven R&D, this is the place where we collaborate with local companies from various industries to develop and provide customized AI solution. We work with uh companies from various industries like agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure, medical, retail, and government. We also provide this um we also provide on-the-job training opportunities, so something like an internship opportunity for students who have completed the lecture to gain experience in uh this industry-driven R&D project. They will first join as a AI engineer, and as they get experience, they will be promoted to a project manager. So, we're aiming to nurture AI talent who can not only develop AI, but also can manage AI model development project.
And lastly, um we are also putting some effort in incubation. There are 42 companies launched by students and graduates of Matsuo Lab called Matsuo Lab Startup. Among 42 of them, two of them are publicly traded in Japanese stock market, and three of them have exited from M&A. The combined market capital of those startup exceeds 2 billion US dollars, and many of those startups launched by students in undergraduate master program. So, at Matsuo Lab, we provide students three-step AI talent development program. Level one is education to acquire theoretical knowledge. Level two is industry-driven R&D to get on-the-job training. And level three is incubation to launch AI startup.
So, um this GCI world program actually is the second program of the English version of GCI program. And and for this program, it was registered by more than 225,000 students from all over the world. So, I hope you will be enjoying your time for the next uh a couple of months to get to know each other and also to collaborate to deepen your understanding in AI.
So, um I would like to now pass the mic to Professor Matsuo to deliver a message.
Hi everyone. Uh thank you all for joining this program. Uh I'm Yutaka Matsuo, a professor of AI at the University of Tokyo, and I lead the Matsuo Lab. Uh today is just the beginning. Over the next few weeks, you will learn how data science and AI can be used to understand the world and solve real-world problems. Regardless of your university or background, I encourage you to stay curious, ask questions, and collaborate with your peers. Data science and AI are powerful tools, but it is your creativity and motivation that will truly make the difference. Um this is an opportunity worth committing to. It could change your life. Let us learn and grow together. I look forward to seeing what you will achieve. Thank you, and good luck.
Thank you, Professor Matsuo. So, now I would like to pass the mic to Shudai to start the very first lecture. Shudai?