Yoshioka sounds the gong to launch the conference. Looking on from left are Tengku Mohamad and Kopli.
KUCHING: Kuching is playing host to the 10th International Asia Information Retrieval Societies (AIRS) Conference.
The three-day conference, officially launched yesterday, is hosted by the Malaysia Society of Information Retrieval and Knowledge Management (Pecamp) together with Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia, International Islamic University Malaysia, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn and Kolej Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Selangor.
AIRS 2014 is a highly prestigious conference in the field of information retrieval held over the past decades in various Asian countries including Japan, China and Singapore.
AIRS president Professor Dr Masaharu Yoshioka said there is a huge demand for Asian languages in the field.
“This is why we decided to hold more symposiums or conferences. There are eight steering committee countries, namely United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, China,Taiwan, Singapore and Australia.
“We hope there will be more who are interested in information retrieval to join us, especially those from countries that are not speaking Asian languages,” he said prior to launching the conference yesterday.
The conference aims to bring together researchers and developers to exchange new ideas and latest achievements in the field of information retrieval.
The scope of the conference covers applications, systems, technologies and theoretical aspects of information retrieval.
Among those present were Pecamp chairman Professor Dr Tengku Mohamad Tengku Sembok, Unimas deputy vice-chancellor (research and innovation) Professor Dr Kopli Bujang and Professor Alan Smeaton from Dublin City University.