LATAM Online
This page includes programme information from our community archive. Contact the team to confirm current dates, availability and requirements.
A community connecting Latin America
AI Saturdays Online brings hands-on AI learning to people across Latin America. We learn with others, share challenges and build a project as a team.
This page brings together previous editions. Confirm the schedule, prerequisites and dates of any new edition with the organising team.
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Archive of previous editions
Latam Edition
AI Saturdays Online
Original event announcement: 12 February, 9:30 a.m. (GMT-6)
Community archive Saturdays.AI
Meet the participants who completed the machine learning and deep learning courses in LATAM’s second edition.
Explore the seven AI projects with social impact developed by this edition’s AI Fellows.
Discover what each project sets out to do and meet its team.
Select a project to learn more.
Read the teams’ articles to learn about their projects.
Angiop.IA
ConciencIA Ecológica
Ciudad LimpIA
GuardIAn
Tótem IA
CiclopeIA
VIASegura
Revisit the second edition’s Demo Day: a talk on smart cities and AI opportunities to improve the places we live, an introduction to the judges, and the teams’ project pitches.
Agenda
Guest speakers
Victor Larios (MX)
Speaker
Smart Cities and opportunities with AI for better places to live
Smart cities bring together different disciplines to explore how technology can improve urban life. Their services and processes are complex, and data can help manage them. Infrastructure supports collecting and analysing information and sharing historical datasets so residents and institutions can make better-informed decisions. Applied well, AI can help improve services and access to them. This talk provides an overview of the problems, challenges and opportunities involved in AI projects for smart cities.
Our Judges
Margarita Sordo (MX)
Judge
Margarita has a PhD in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from the University of Sussex, United Kingdom with a master's degree in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests include the application of knowledge elicitation and representation techniques in biomedicine and healthcare; biomedical ontologies; artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques for knowledge discovery and clinical decision support.
At the time of this edition, her work focused on complex adaptive systems to model patient characteristics and preferences, and study how health determinants and public policies affect individual health.
Carlos Astengo (MX)
Judge
Carlos Astengo holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from ITESM’s Monterrey campus and a master’s in Applied Mathematics from the University of Guadalajara’s Centro Universitario de Ciencias Exactas e Ingenierías, where he also studied Mathematics.
He has held several roles at Tecnológico de Monterrey and completed specialist studies in Telecommunications at its Guadalajara campus. He collaborated with UT Austin’s Center for Numerical Analysis. He trained in project-oriented learning (POL) at the universities of Twente and Aalborg, problem-based learning (PBL) at Wheeling University, the case method at Harvard and collaborative learning at UT Austin. His biography records his POL and PBL facilitator certification and his roles as national director of the Centres for Faculty Development and Educational Innovation (CEDDIEs) and Undergraduate Studies Chief Innovation Officer.
Victor Larios (MX)
Judge
Biography from the original edition: Víctor M. Larios graduated in Electronic Engineering from ITESO in 1996. He earned a master’s in 1997 and a PhD in Computer Science in 2001 from the Université de Technologie de Compiègne in France. At the time of this edition, he was a tenured research professor at the University of Guadalajara and had directed CUCEA’s Smart Cities Innovation Centre since April 2014.
His biography for this edition records more than 70 peer-reviewed international journal and conference articles, along with a book on serious games. He has worked with the technology industry and public authorities on smart city projects.
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March 2022 launch event
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Guest speakers
Sofía Trejo (MX)
Speaker
Researcher and professor specialized in Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Interested in studying the intersections between AI and human rights and in promoting critical understanding of technology. She has a degree in Mathematics from UNAM and a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Warwick. She has worked as a researcher at the University of São Paulo and at Imperial College London.
At the time of this edition, she taught on the Data Science master’s programme at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and served on the Advisory Council of Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute.
Dina Medina (MX)
Speaker
A systems engineer from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, with experience in project management, CMMI, TSP/PSP, ITIL, Agile, Scrum and design thinking.
More than 25 years of experience in areas of Systems Design and Development, Project Office, implementation of methodologies and Process reengineering.
Leadership and participation in initiatives to implement CMMi, TSP/PSP, ITIL, Agile and Scrum. Enthusiast of innovation and creative thinking disciplines such as Design Thinking, Human Centered Design and Creative Problem Solving.
At the time of this edition, she was a senior manager in the Strategic Planning Office for Infrastructure & IT Operations at BBVA Holding and a mentor to university students. #LifeLongLearner
Our Team
We are a community of people who care about AI and what we can build together. We connect knowledge, experience and technology to develop useful projects for society.
Angelina Alarcón (MX)
Community lead and mentor
Biography from the original edition: Angelina is a computer engineer with master’s degrees in Business Administration and in Data Science and Big Data. At the time of this edition, she was pursuing a PhD in Information Technology at the University of Guadalajara and had more than 25 years of professional IT experience, including machine learning projects in the public sector. She is a member of DAMA México and co-founder of Women in Data Science, Power and Engineering AC. At the time of this edition, she coordinated the Saturdays.AI community in Latin America.
Christian Tutivén (EC)
Mentor
PhD in Automation, Robotics and Vision from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). Master in Business Administration from the Santa María University of Chile. Master's Degree in Telecommunications from the Universidad Católica Santiago de Guayaquil. Telecommunications Engineering from the Universidad Católica Santiago de Guayaquil. Member of the CoDAlab (Control, Modeling, Identification and Applications) research group at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.
Professor and researcher at Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL), Univ. De Nariño and Ecuadorian Statistical Society. Founder of Steam Center (Data-Driven Projects).
Nayelhi de Anda (MX)
Mentor
She holds a Marketing degree from the University of Guadalajara and a master’s in Data Science and Big Data. She co-founded Vitruvio, a digital marketing and AI agency. Her biography for this edition records more than six years of experience delivering data science, digital marketing and business intelligence projects for large and medium-sized companies across different sectors.
Eduardo Ramírez (MX)
Mentor
Biography from the original edition: entrepreneur and data scientist Eduardo founded and leads the Monterrey Data Science Meetup. He writes and speaks about data and analytics. Since the mid-2000s, he has worked in forecasting, machine learning and optimisation as a researcher or consultant for startups and companies including Microsoft and Yahoo. He co-founded Ensitech, which had more than 50 employees at the time of this edition, and led its AI work. He also participated in AirHubNL, an independent air quality monitoring network in Monterrey, and coordinated the local Saturdays.AI community.
Francisco Mena (CL)
Mentor
As a Data Scientist, Francisco has worked with machine learning models to assist in diagnoses in medicine, and designing business intelligence models. As an Environmental Engineer he has conducted research on air quality, emissions of pollutants and aerosols, atmospheric processes, as well as various environmental engineering and sustainability problems.
Cecilia Hurtado (MX)
Mentor
Industrial Engineer and Master in Economics from the University of Guadalajara. She has worked as a manager and coordinator of software development projects, as well as data collection and processing for benefit analysis of various social programs and government initiatives in state and federal public entities. She has participated as a mentor, judge and promoter of various challenges and hackathons with a social focus, promoting diversity and participation of young people and girls to bridge the gender gap in technology.
Alexander Saravia (EC)
Mentor
Biography from the original edition: an Electronics, Automation and Control engineer, Alexander was pursuing a master’s in Computational Intelligence at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. He was the local lead and Internet of Things coordinator for Saturdays.AI Quito (ai6uio.org). He worked as an IoT and AI research consultant for universities in Ecuador and co-founded SunPlena Tech, developing solutions that combine both technologies.
Rosa Sunum (GT)
Mentor
Daniel Hernandez (MX)
Mentor
Nanotechnology engineer with experience in simulation of quantum physics models, data analysis and visualization in Python. He has great interest in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. He participated in research projects focused on quantum computing and optimization methods.
Rodrigo Herrera (CR)
Mentor
Biography from the original edition: co-founder and CTO of Ainnovatech, a systems engineer with a master’s in Big Data and Business Intelligence from NEXT IBS and the Universitat de Lleida. His profile lists training in Broadcom networking in Minnesota and Linux server administration at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica. He worked as a data scientist at UPS in the United States and as the Costa Rica lead for www.saturdays.ai . He was also a lecturer and director of LEAD University’s Artificial Intelligence specialisation. He is passionate about physics, science and making technology more accessible.
Fernando Silva (BO)
Mentor
Biography from the original edition: Fernando is a systems engineer with a postgraduate qualification in Artificial Intelligence from the Universidad de Chile. He has worked in AI since 2019. He began as a Python and machine learning mentor with the Centro Cultural de España and worked in banking, implementing machine learning models. At the time of this edition, he was researching reinforcement learning at the Universidad Católica de Bolivia. He won a category at the Facebook F8 hackathon in Silicon Valley in 2019. He has led communities including GDG Android Bolivia, Data Science Bolivia, PyData La Paz and Kaggle Days La Paz to broaden access to AI. At that time, he also had a computer vision startup and was an ambassador for deeplearning.ai through its Pie & AI programme, founded by Andrew Ng.
Gibran Félix (MX)
Mentor
Graduate in Computer Science from the UAS, Master in Computer Science from CINVESTAV, Guadalajara Campus. Since 2012 he has been involved in multiple data-related ventures. At the time of this edition, he worked as Co-founder of Spreaad, an analytics company focused on understanding user conversion.
Ivan Fretes (PY)
Mentor
Senior Software Developer, with more than 10 years in the field. I have worked in various sectors (Universities, Real Estate, etc.). Extensive experience as a freelancer and external consultant.
My interests include startups, inbound marketing, software development and data science.
Ángel Encalada (EC)
Mentor
Biography from the original edition: Ángel is a Mechatronics engineer from ESPOL in Guayaquil. At the time of this edition, he worked as a software engineer for an ATM management company in Ecuador. He collaborated as an external researcher with CoDAlab at UPC in Barcelona, developing deep learning models to detect and predict wind turbine faults. He also researched models for identifying and classifying fuel cell damage at an ESPOL renewable energy laboratory. Since 2019, he has published papers in international scientific journals and conferences and taught workshops on computational modelling, drone flight simulation and other topics.
Naren Castellon (PA)
Mentor
He holds a Mathematics degree and master’s degrees in actuarial methods and Finance. He has taught at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua and ADEN’s Panama campus, and delivered machine learning workshops at universities in Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Honduras.
Our partners
Our local and global partners help us expand opportunities to learn AI.
Previous edition announcement 3rd. Edition
LATAM Edition
AI Saturdays Online
AI Saturdays Online connects people across Latin America to learn AI through practice. This edition offered four months of teamwork, challenges and projects with fellow AI learners.
When: III Edition – Fall 2022
Where: online
Programme: machine learning and deep learning
Estimated duration
4 months
This means 4 hours on Saturdays in a group + 6 hours estimated during the week of study and practice.
Edition announced on this page
September, 2022
The original announcement did not specify the starting Saturday.
Join, learn and enjoy with us!
Prerequisites
Python, statistics and basic mathematics
The programme included preparation resources to strengthen participants’ background knowledge.
AI Saturdays LATAM Fall 2022 Edition
This edition’s study groups met on Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The edition included two weeks of preparation in Python, statistics and basic mathematics, seven weeks of practical exercises, and six weeks of project development. It concluded with a Demo Day, with mentors supporting participants throughout.
Activities used tools such as Zoom, Mural and Miro. Each Saturday, mentors and fellow participants worked together and helped answer questions.
Learn about the program in detail
*The course is in Spanish, but there are teaching resources in English.
Share it with your friends!
What do our students say?
Meet the students of the 1st edition
What is the experience like?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we adapted the experience to an online format, with opportunities to meet other participants, mentoring and practical exercises. The video shows the AI Saturdays Madrid experience.
You can see the Demoday of the I Edition
Meet the AI community in LATAM
The Latin American AI Saturdays archive includes communities in Mexico (Guadalajara, Hermosillo, Monterrey and Mérida), Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador (Quito and Guayaquil), Peru (Lima), Chile (Santiago), Panama, Paraguay (Asunción) and Bolivia (La Paz and Cochabamba). They share an approach: learning AI together through projects with social impact. Ask each local team about available activities.
The online experience offered a learning challenge over several months, combining practice with opportunities to meet other people.
Contact LATAM City Lead
Feel free to tell us anything, we'd love to know more about you 😉
