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NORA Award for Lifetime Achievement
To recognize an individual affiliated with a Norwegian institution who has made profound contributions to the field of Artificial Intelligence, influencing the work of many others and helping to shape the state of the art.
Winner: Jim Tørresen, Professor, UiO
Jim Tørresen is a professor at UiO. Jim Tørresen has worked within AI for more than 20 years. Jim works with robotics and intelligent systems. He has 5739 citations in total, of which he got 760 last year. This shows that Jim is getting more known and is spreading his research. Professor and group leader for the Robotics and Intelligent Systems (ROBIN) research group at the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo. Besides working
Kai Olav Ellefsen, Jean-Baptiste Mouret, and Jeff Clune. "Neural modularity helps
organisms evolve to learn new skills without forgetting old skills." PLoS
computational biology 11.4 (2015): e1004128. (by unanimous decision)
at NTNU Norway, he has also worked in Japan and USA. Jim has built up highly successful research group in Oslo, including large SFI projects. He has done so consistently over many years – even during the AI winters.
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NORA Award for Distinguished Early-Career Investigator
To recognize an individual affiliated with a Norwegian institution who is early in their career (typically pre-tenure), but has already made important contributions to the field of Artificial Intelligence.
Winner: Ishita Barua, Lead in AI Healthcare, Deloitte
shita Barua is an excellent researcher. She has several published
works https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=OsVNBjAAAAAJ . Ishita Barua is very young in her career and definitely deserves being recognized. She already has 232 google scholar citations (almost all of her citations are from very recent publications). One of them, in particular, is a level 2 publication (the best possible) in the Norwegian Publication Point System. This publication is from 2021 and it received 115 citations. She is the first author, which is really impressive. The nomination included a few more impressive achievements of this candidate, including being a Fullbright Scholar at Harvard Medical School and co-founding an AI-elective course at the Medical Faculty in her home university.
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NORA Award for AI Community Building & Education
To recognize an individual affiliated with a Norwegian institution who has provided truly exceptional service to the field of Artificial Intelligence by, for example, helping to organize the NORA community or other Norwegian AI communities, developing valuable resources, teaching and educating about Artificial Intelligence, or facilitating administration of NORA.
Winner: Morten Goodwin, Professor, UiA
Morten Goodwin is a full professor in artificial intelligence at the University of Agder, adjunct professor at OsloMet, co-founder and CTO of AIVEO, chief scientist of AI:hub, deputy director of Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research, and one of Norway's foremost experts on artificial intelligence. Outstanding contribution to NORA over several years! Morten Goodwin also appears on radio, television, and other media. Morten is everywhere! He is one of Norway's most well-known professors in the field of artificial intelligence.
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NORA Award for Diversity in AI
To recognize an individual affiliated with a Norwegian institution who has been active and in the forefront of shedding light on gender issues in the field of AI, or other types of discrimination such as age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc.
Winner: Roger Andre Søraa, Associate Professor, NTNU
Roger Andre Søraa made a great effort on how AI impacts society, human – AI interactions and how various groups in the society respond to AI. Roger is associate professor at NTNU, His research focus is on automation, robotization, and the digitalization of society – how humans and technology relate to each other. Dr. Søraa is especially interested in the social domestication of technology. Roger is the author of the book “AI for diversity” https://www.routledge.com/AI-for-Diversity/Soraa/p/book/9781032073569. AI for Diversity questions how AI technology can lead to inclusion or exclusion for diverse groups in society. The way data is selected, trained, used, and embedded into societies can have unfortunate consequences unless we critically investigate the dangers of systems left unchecked, and can lead to misogynistic, homophobic, racist, ageist, transphobic, or ableist outcomes. This book encourages the reader to take a step back to see how AI is impacting diverse groups of people and how diversity-awareness strategies can impact AI.
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NORA Award for Outstanding Publication of the Decade 2012 – 2022
To recognize the authors (at least one affiliated to a Norwegian institution) of an influential publication in any venue from the last decade (2012-2022) that has had a profound impact on the field of Artificial Intelligence, as evidenced by follow-up research, citations, or attention brought to the field.
Winner: Ellefsen, Kai Olav, Jean-Baptiste Mouret, and Jeff Clune. "Neural modularity helps organisms evolve to learn new skills without forgetting old skills." PLoS computational biology 11.4 (2015): e1004128.
Google scholar: 165 citations. The topic of incremental learning without forgetting previously learned items is very important. With 165 citations since 2015 the paper seems to be well received. PLoS computational biology is level 2 (the best possible) in the Norwegian Publication Point System. The topic of neural modularity brings insights that can impact many areas of AI.
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NORA.startup Award
To recognize a Norwegian startup company either developing or using AI technology that has achieved outstanding results, for instance through the acquisition of public or private funding initiatives or customer growth. The startup must conduct research-driven innovation in collaboration with researchers affiliated with a Norwegian institution.
Winner: Factiverse
Factiverse: very innovative and solid startup. They have a great product, which is much needed in the current times when GPT is making up information. In 2019 Vinay Setty founded Factiverse with support from Valide, University of Stavanger and local investors Murshid M. Ali and Petter S.Berge. In spring 2020 Maria Amelie joined the team as CEO, and in 2021 we raised 1 million Euro in private and public funding and finished several accelerators like ITSA Growth and StartupLab. They assembled an ambitious team, landed a pilot project with the main news agency in Norway, NTB and won several awards, like SR Bank Innovation Award.
This articles was originally published on the 8th of June, 2023.