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Keynote Lectures

Available Soon
Angela Bonifati, Lyon 1 University, France, France

The Future of Agriculture Through Data Science: Challenges and Opportunities for Autonomous Field Systems
João Paulo Papa, Sao Paulo State University, Brazil, Brazil

Data Management Meets Its AI Partner
Alon Halevy, Google Cloud, United States, United States

 

Available Soon

Angela Bonifati
Lyon 1 University, France
 

Short Bio
Available Soon


Abstract
Available Soon



 

 

The Future of Agriculture Through Data Science: Challenges and Opportunities for Autonomous Field Systems

João Paulo Papa
Sao Paulo State University, Brazil
https://papajpblog.wordpress.com/
 

Short Bio
BSc in Information Systems from the São Paulo State University (Brazil), MSc in Computer Science from the Federal University of Sao Carlos (Brazil), Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Campinas (Brazil), Post-Doctorate at the University of Campinas (Brazil), Harvard University and MIT (USA), He is a Senior IEEE Member and Fellow of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR), Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA), and a Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany).


Abstract
Autonomous weed management represents one of the next frontiers in precision agriculture, yet perennial crops such as sugarcane remain especially challenging due to dense vegetation and the “green-on-green” similarity between crops and weeds. In this talk, we present a realistic in-field benchmark dataset and evaluate modern deep learning approaches for weed detection, classification, and segmentation under real-world agricultural conditions. Our results reveal an important gap between laboratory performance and field readiness: while classification approaches achieved near-perfect accuracy, robust weed detection remains an open challenge. We discuss architectural insights, deployment considerations, and the path toward practical AI-driven systems capable of supporting sustainable and autonomous agriculture.



 

 

Data Management Meets Its AI Partner

Alon Halevy
Google Cloud, United States
 

Short Bio
Alon Halevy is a Distinguished Engineer at Google Cloud, where he works on extending data management with GenAI. From 2019 until November 2023, he was a director at Meta’s Reality Labs Research, where he worked on Personal Digital Data, the combination of neural and symbolic techniques for data management and on Human Value Alignment. Prior to Meta, Alon was the CEO of Megagon Labs (2015-2018) and led the Structured Data Group at Google Research (2005-2015), where the team developed WebTables and Google Fusion Tables. From 1998 to 2005 he was a professor at the University of Washington, where he founded the database group. Alon is a founder of two startups, Nimble Technology and Transformic (acquired by Google in 2005). Alon co-authored three books: The AI Partner (2026), The Infinite Emotions of Coffee and Principles of Data Integration. In 2021 he received the Edgar F. Codd SIGMOD Innovations Award. Alon is a Fellow of the ACM and a recipient of the PECASE award and Sloan Fellowship. Together with his co-authors, he received VLDB 10-year best paper awards for the 2008 paper on WebTables and for the 1996 paper on the Information Manifold data integration system.


Abstract
Generative AI is disrupting data management on multiple levels. It enables us to finally query structured and unstructured data in a uniform fashion, while simultaneously democratizing access to data through natural language interfaces to querying. Beyond that, AI enables us to substantially reimagine the complexity of questions we can ask from collections of data and the scope of decisions that data can help support. In this talk I will discuss how Google Cloud Data is innovating in these areas, as well as share ambitious ideas for us to tackle as a community.



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