NExt++ Workshop, Singapore by Simon Jonsson

After the 13 hour flight we landed in Singapore. The first day was spent resting and seeing what the city had to offer. In the evening we ate a local dinner with Professor Dame Wendy Hall.

The first day of the workshop took place in a vigorously air conditioned room at our hotel. Many interesting talks ensued with topics surrounding fake news, natural language processing and the future of trust on the Web. I especially enjoyed Professor Min-Yen Kan’s talk about novel methods for detecting misinformation online.

On the second day of the conference it was time to get to work. I was in a group which tackled the topic “Trust Calibration via Explanation”. The premise was that systems that detect fake news and other web pitfalls not only need to work well, but also need to be understandable enough for people to trust to use them. It was a long day but after much teamwork between us and the Singaporean students we held our presentation.

All in all, the trip was a fantastic experience. The workshop was interesting and enlightening. It was also great to spend time with my fellow students, learning more about everybody’s work and getting to know them better!