AI Singapore PhD Fellowship Programme€¦ · 07/08/2020 · •Supporting top AI research talents...

AI SINGAPORE CONFIDENTIAL. DO NOT DISTRIBUTE. 1

AI SingaporePhD Fellowship Programme

External brief

7 August 2020

AI SINGAPORE CONFIDENTIAL. DO NOT DISTRIBUTE.


Background• AI Singapore aims to nurture and train local AI talents to perform advanced

fundamental AI Research.

• Supporting top AI research talents pursuing their PhD in Singapore-based Autonomous Universities (AUs).

• The AISG PhD Fellowship welcomes applications from all nationalities.

• A competitive stipend of up to S$6,000 monthly, on top of other allowances and full tuition fees support up to four years of studies at Singapore-based AUs.

• Aims to increase Singapore’s visibility and presence on AI fundamental research bypublishing in top-tier AI conferences

• Allows participation in AISG initiatives of other pillars such as 100Experiments, AI Makerspace, AI Grand Challenges and AI Technology Challenges.

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Research Focus Themes• Trustworthy and explainable AI

• Boost AI adoption

• Build on Singapore’s “trust” brand

• Privacy-aware AI

• Demand from regulators and consumers

• Learn from sensitive datasets, while preserving privacy of individuals

• Resource-efficient AI

• Small country – small dataset

• Learning from small but quality data-sets

• Collaborative AI

• Strengths in NLP and diversity as a testbed

• Continuous Learning AI

• Autonomous incremental learning AI towards Artificial General Intelligence

Capability Clusters

Privacy Aware

AI

Trustworthy and

Explainable AI

Continuous Learning

AI

Collaborative AIResource Efficient

AI

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Grant Call 2020 – Mapping to Target Capabilities

Development, assessment and certification of trusted AI system

• Safe, Fair and Robust AI system development

• Transparent/explainable AI system development

• Explainability and Trust (Safe, Fair, Robust) Assessment

Trustworthy and Explainable AI

Human-AI and AI-AI collaborative systems

• Human modelling for collaboration – Intentions, Goals and Behaviours

• Complex Decision Making Under Uncertainty

• Communications and Interactions

AI for Collaborative Decision Making

AI learning from small data enabled by common sense, design rules, laws of physics and human knowledge

• AI understanding of design and creation

• Human AI co-design

• Knowledge representation with complex priors/measurements

• Science-inspired /physics-based AI systems/models

AI for Design & Discovery

Collaborative AI Explainable AI Resource Efficient AI

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Overview of Fellowship Support and Commitments

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Common Benefits

Monthly

Sustenance

Allowance

CPF

Contribution

(Employer)

Service

Obligations

(Post

Graduation)

Commitments

Singaporean • Full local tuition fees

up to 4 years

• Other allowances:

Computer,

conference travels,

miscellaneous

S$ 6,000 Yes N/A

• 4 publications*

• Involvement in

AISG

programmes

Singapore PR S$ 5,500 No N/A

International

Student

(without PR)

S$ 5,000 N/AYes

(2 years)

*Publications – to increase Singapore’s visibility in top conferences and FWCI ranking: - Proper acknowledgment and featured in Top 10% NRF Approved List main/technical track or Top 10% S&T Clarivate list.- Main/primary contributor of the paper- AISG selected top-tier conferences^ main/technical track will receive up to S$5,000 travel grant. Otherwise, all others in top 10% NRF Approved list will be

S$2,000 travel grant^Top 9 conferences: ACL, EMNLP, CVPR, ICCV, KDD, AAAI, IJCAI, NeurIPS, ICMLThe top-tier conferences is subject to annual review by AI Singapore.



Process Flow

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Individual IHL filter and recommend potential applicants/candidates for AISG’s consideration

NUS

AISG

NUS

NTU

SMU

SUTD

Evaluation and Award

NTU

SMU

SUTD

Potential Applicant / Existing PhD candidate• Apply

accordingly to each IHL Graduate Application

Award and/or Admit Potential PhD Students• Internal

Allocation of AISG award

• Awarded PhD fellow must inform AISG who is their supervisor within 6 months

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2

3 4

Supervisor(s) may be from the following IHLs:A*STAR; SMU; SUTD; NUS; NTU



Submission Quota per AUNUS NTU SMU SUTD

Quota (New Applications) 30 30 15 15

Quota (Transfer Cases) 6 6 4 4

Quota (Combination) 30 30 15 15

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The submission quota is based on January 2021 intake submission to AISG PhD Fellowship Programme. All submission count will be reset for August 2021 intake and the quota limit is subject to revision.

For transfer candidates (Only valid for existing PhD candidates with remaining 2 years* or more)• After 2 years of PhD studies (remaining 2 years)

• E.g. for January 2021 intake evaluation, the candidate must be admitted during/after January 2019 intake. • Ensure that their current scholarships are allowed for transfer – eligibility should be checked by each institution

• PhD studies started from August 2020:• They will be transferred from their 2nd year onwards only. If awarded, AISG PhD Fellowship will commence from August 2021.

• [Important] Each institution is required to rank the candidates accordingly for strong considerations. New applications and transfer candidates should be ranked separately.

*assumption of 4 years of PhD studies only



Evaluation Criteria• Fundamental AI Research Directions

• A clear focus of a single proposed theme• Directions of research and core technique AI areas that the potential

PhD candidate will work on• Proposed list of conferences to target on

• Applicant’s / Candidate’s Background• Education Qualifications• Awards (Academic or Technical)• Industrial Experiences• Personal Statement with a clear articulation of novel and significant

proposed research directions.• Existing publications in top-tier AI conferences/journals (if any)• Recommendation Letters from established researchers, faculty

members or technical supervisors.

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Key Dates for all Autonomous Universities

• Submission of Candidates• 13 Aug 2020 – 18 Sept 2020*

AUs will need to set individual deadlines of candidates/applicants revert back information.

• Evaluation• October 2020 (Early - Mid)

• Release of Outcome• End October 2020 or Early

November 2020

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JANUARY 2021 INTAKE AUGUST 2021 INTAKE

• Submission of Candidates

• 19 March 2021 – 30 April 2021*AUs will need to set individual deadlines of candidates/applicants revert back information.

• Evaluation

• May 2021 (Early - Mid)

• Release of Outcome

• End May 2021 or Early June 2021



Submission Process – AISG PhD Fellowship

• Online Portal

• 13 August 2020, 12pm – 18 September 2020, 6pm

• Key Documents for Submission

• Online Application Form @ aisingapore.org/research/ • PDF Documents

• Section 2 - Personal Statements• Section 6 - Endorsement from AUs• Annexes

• Reminder for Submission• Important for AUs to rank the candidates accordingly

for strong considerations

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Submission Process – AISG PhD Fellowship

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Submission by applicant / candidate

• Personal Statement (Section 2)

• List interested/existing supervisors (Section 3)

• Attend any briefings from individual AUs regarding their PhD supervisors selection (Section 4)

• Upload CV and Education certs (Annex A and B)

PhD Fellowship Programme Call

• AUs publicized, recommend and evaluate

• Graduate Officer to create profiles @ AISG Talent portal (Section 1 of application forms)

Internal AU Endorsement

• Verify Section 1 to 5, Annexes A,B

• Endorse and upload Section 6 and Annex C

• Rank Applicants / Candidates (Section 6)

Results from AISG

• Verification

• Evaluation

• Award

Au

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Ap

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AI Singapore PhD Fellowship Programme€¦ · 07/08/2020 · •Supporting top AI research talents...

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