ADM+S at RMIT welcomes DIGITAUS from Tsinghua University
Author Natalie Campbell
Date 9 August 2024
On Friday 2 August, ADM+S members from the RMIT School of Computing Technologies (SCT) welcomed a delegation of Tsinghua University’s DIGITAUS Social Practice Team.
The 14 DIGITAUS representatives included esteemed faculty members, doctoral candidates and undergraduate students.
“DIGITAUS are seeking to understand the digital transformation practices of Australia’s key industries, with a specific interest in how university laboratories are contributing to the technological innovation in industry,” said ADM+S AI Dr Damiano Spina, who coordinated the visit.
RMIT hosts showcased the RMIT AWS Supercomputing (RACE) Hub, and the Virtual Experiences Lab (VXLab), where the group saw the NOVA Helicopter Simulator (HeliSim) in action.
Prof George Buchanan (Deputy Dean of Research, SCT) gave a presentation about the research capabilities and existing industry engagement at the School, and ADM+S PhD student Sachin Cherumanal introduced the group to Walert – a customised chatbot designed to answer questions related to SCT programs.
“The Walert interaction promoted awareness about the limitations and risks of LLM-based conversational assistants, including intent-based and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems,” said Dr Spina.
Visiting the ADM+S office, the group was excited to hear about the impacts of research being carried out by ADM+S stakeholders in academia, industry and communities, flicking through the ADM+S annual reports to understand the expanse of our network and engagement.
The visit wrapped up with an insightful display and discussion around ‘Information Retrieval on Country’ (2023), a commissioned Indigenous artwork by Dr Treahna Hamm (Firebrace), which seeks to bridge the gap between heritage and innovation, fostering a profound appreciation for the timeless connection between Elders, land, and the wealth of knowledge embedded within their intertwined stories.
