Lecture and workshop - Prof. Andrea Nanetti
The WGRE Program will host Prof. Andrea Nanetti, from the Nanyang Technological University Singapore, who will hold an interdisciplinary MASTERCLASS (lecture and workshop, see below). The event will be held in Room 1 in the WGRE building in Rovigo on 20 November at 16:30-18:00.
Zoom link:
https://unipd.zoom.us/j/87190566399?pwd=5bHlELIQQTGb5ivuc1GiVDZp7hVr8E.1
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Lecture: History and Environmental Sciences in the Era of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
This lecture presents some critical reflections on a crucial question. What would happen if we aggregated all the information available online for a specific historical or historiographical theme, curated it with traditional meticulousness and put it just a click away from the historian's daily work? The academic potential to assist scholars is enormous. But what social value do we add to this exceptional academic achievement? As new Cedalion, we can address this question with small, simple, targeted and impactful answers to direct the giant Orion into the era of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI), which is already entering the era of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). From a more traditional DIKW (Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom) perspective, we have data, and we can create information by linking it. However, we must go one step further to develop new knowledge and inspire wisdom in the next generation of scholars and citizens. But how to do it? In this lecture, the speaker will propose a few tentative solutions based on the experience of the international initiative Engineering Historical Memory (EHM), which inspired the CISH Internal Commission for "Computational Sciences and History", established at the CISH General Assembly in Tokyo on 25 October 2024.
Workshop: "How to customise Open AI ChatGPT to suit scholarly research"
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SPEAKER'S BIO. Dr Andrea Nanetti is an award-winning and internationally recognised expert in digital humanities. Dr Andrea Nanetti is a fellow of the Academy of Sciences of Venice (IVSLA), a tenured Associate Professor in Digital Humanities at the School of Art, Design, and Media of Nanyang Technological University Singapore, and a prospective Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities at GAFA (PRC). Several top-level institutions, including Harvard University, Princeton University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Brown University, Fudan University, and Ca' Foscari University of Venice, invited him to be a visiting fellow.
He received his education in Historical Sciences from Italy, France, Germany, Greece, and the USA, where he has acquired multidisciplinary skills in humanities, mathematical, physical, and computational sciences. Using the history of Venice as a showcase and laboratory, he achieved international standing within a broad research spectrum that spans from critical editions of primary sources to computational and digital applications via the publication of monographs and articles, invitations to contribute at leading international conferences, visibility in professional organisations, editorships in international journals as well as involvement in the organisation of significant research projects, conferences, and workshops internationally. After completing his PhD in 2000, he continued learning integrated heritage science skills from universities, research centres, charitable foundations, and industries in Europe, the USA, China, Russia, India, Australia, and the Gulf. Leveraging on these experiences, Dr Nanetti has created an interdisciplinary initiative called Engineering Historical Memory (EHM), which includes about 130 scholars and software engineers and has trained more than 170 students worldwide. EHM explores and tests if and how computational technologies can empower scholarly research without diluting content or value.
His accomplishments include winning the 2024 Digital Humanities and Multimedia Studies Prize from the Medieval Academy of America, being selected in China's Thousand Talent Program in 2023, winning the 2021 GLAMi Awards (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums Innovation) in the category "Resources for Scholars and Researchers", and being a finalist for Science Breakthrough of the Year in Social Sciences and Humanities for Falling Walls 2021 for his web-based international initiative, Engineering Historical Memory (EHM). He also received a Research Excellence Award for "outstanding research on Venetian Maritime Heritage accomplished over the last 20 years" (University of Florence and ICOMOS-UNESCO). In 2021, he was appointed Scientific Coordinator overseeing the international joint research and exhibition projects of the Archivio di Stato di Venezia and Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, and, in 2024, member of the National Committee to Commemorate the Seven Hundred Years Since the Death of Marco Polo (1324-2024).
