Join us for Episode 34 of Nerd Nite in Orlando. We’ll be celebrating the greatest and nerdiest franchise of all time… STAR WARS! We’ll begin the evening by testing your knowledge of Star Wars trivia followed by 2 presentations that bring some fact to the fantasy.
Nerd Nite is an evening of entertaining yet thought-provoking presentations– all while the audience drinks along in a casual bar atmosphere. Speakers present for 15-20 minutes each on a fascinating subject of their choice, often in an uncanny and unconventional way. Following each presentation is a brief Q&A with the audience.
Come meet up, drink, and learn something new!
EVENT IS FREE!
EVENT INFO:
When: Thursday, December 10, 2015, 7:00pm
Where: The Geek Easy (inside “A Comic Shop”)
114 S Semoran Blvd #6
Winter Park, FL 32792
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RSVP on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/553640828135096/
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PRESENTATION TITLE: “Do You Even Know What Artificial Intelligence Is? Killing The Pop Sensation of A.I. and Machine Learning Through Star Wars” by Felix Sosa
Artificial Intelligence. Machine Learning. It’s hard existing in 2015 without hearing these terms and it’s even harder actually understanding what they really are. So, why are you so sure of what they are and how they’re going to affect our lives? Popular understanding of what AI is and what ML does is so skewed it’s unlikely to talk about it in public without the looming idea of global destruction via Terminator in the midst. We’re going to stop this and analyzing the relationships between people and AI systems in Star Wars is going to help us.
Felix is an artificial intelligence researcher at the University of Central Florida’s Evolutionary Complexity lab. There he does extensive research at the intersection of Evolutionary Computation and Machine Learning to help build some of the most complex, deep artificial neural networks (he’ll explain it better at the speech). Outside of the lab he constantly ponders theories of intelligence and the brain and hopes to one day be a leader in the field of AI. But for now he’s living his life, giving talks, making electronics, and pursuing research in the academic heart of Orlando.
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PRESENTATION TITLE: “The Star Wars Futurist Report Card: What They Got Right, and What’s Even Cooler Than We Expected.” by Colin Forward
Colin Forward takes us through the prescient, daring, and sometimes not-so-accurate predictions about gadgets and tech made in the original Star Wars Trilogy. We’ll some of the most exciting new developments in emerging fields like wearables, the cloud, and the Internet of Things, and take a look at where Star Wars got it right. Forward will share insights from the Mixed Emerging Technology Integration Lab at UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training where he conducts research on next-generation mobile software for education, healthcare, and governance.
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PRESENTATION TITLE: “Why The Force Will Truly Awaken in the Hands of JJ Abrams”
There’s no question that Star Wars is the premiere franchise in the history of cinema. No set of films has inspired so much fandom and thus spawned an endless amount of animated series, novels, comics, toys, fake languages, etc… But just under 20 years ago George Lucas launched a second set of Star Wars films and though they made butt loads of money, the Geek world was hugely disappointed in the prequel films in comparison to the original trilogy. So with the Force Awakens on its way and George Lucas officially taking a backseat (well, more like being left behind), is there a new hope for a trilogy that can truly stand amongst the original….