Swedish AI Society | SAIS

This year we received 5 nominations, which were all reviewed by several SAIS board members. Although we received many high-quality nominations, after the review process the highest ranked thesis by the reviewers, at the same time the one considered most interesting for a presentation at the SAIS workshop, was selected by the board as this years winner.

The SAIS Best AI Master’s Thesis Award 2025 goes to:
Hannes Nilsson and Rikard Johansson, for the thesis entitled “Learning
to Navigate Over Stochastic Transport Networks Using Multi-Armed
Bandits”, conducted at Chalmers University of Technology under the
supervision of Morteza Haghir Chehreghani.

Motivation:
The thesis addresses the important practical challenge of energy
efficient route selection, when navigating a road network with an
electric vehicle. This contributes both to the area of intelligent
transportation systems, as well as sustainability and the transition
away from fossil fuel vehicles. In the thesis the problem is studied
within a realistic setting, further enhancing the applicability of the
results. The work provides a scientific contribution within AI, studying
the application of multi-armed bandit algorithms to this problem, and
assessing different implementations of the algorithms. The thesis is
additionally very well written, has a clear motivation and relevance to
the field, and includes a thorough experimental validation.

The thesis will be invited to be presented at the SAIS workshop 2025 (see: https://slawomir-nowaczyk.github.io/SAIS-2025), at Halmstad University on June 16-17 2025.

Congratulations to the winners, and a big thanks to everyone who nominated a thesis as well as the reviewers for their assessment effort!

The SAIS board,
through Eva Blomqvist, SAIS secretary

In order to stimulate work in the area of artificial intelligence at the undergraduate level of education, SAIS has created a special yearly award for the best Master’s thesis (examensarbete) in the area of artificial intelligence. The winner will be awarded travel funds of 10 000 SEK, and is expected to present the winning contribution in connection with the SAIS workshop in June.

Deadline for nomination is February 21st 2025.

To nominate a Master’s Thesis for the award, the following rules apply:

• The thesis is in one of the main areas of artificial intelligence research.
• The thesis has been presented officially during the period of January 1, 2024 – January 31, 2025.
• An electronic copy of the thesis (PDF) and a short written motivation by the nominator should be submitted through the following EasyChair submission area (submission page). The nomination should include a short motivation why the thesis should be selected as the winner, and state its contributions to AI. Please note that the “author” of the nomination is the person nominating the thesis, i.e. NOT the authors of the thesis, and in the “abstract” field please enter the motivation letter.
• The nominating person must be a member of SAIS, but does not have to be the official examiner or primary supervisor.
• Only one thesis nomination per nominating person is permitted.
• The master thesis project has to be conducted by a student registered at a Swedish university or other higher education establishment in Sweden, and/or present work mainly conducted at an organisation within Sweden, and/or represent a thesis where the official presentation was done in Sweden.

The SAIS board will review the nominated Master’s theses and determine a winner based on factors such as novelty, thoroughness, readability, scientific value and relevance to artificial intelligence, both with respect to research and to potential applications. The decision by the SAIS board will be final. The SAIS workshop is planned for June 16-17 2025, in Halmstad.

Amy Loutfi – President of SAIS
Eva Blomqvist – Secretary of SAIS

In order to stimulate work in the area of artificial intelligence at the undergraduate level of education, SAIS has created a special yearly award for the best Master’s thesis (examensarbete) in the area of artificial intelligence. The winner will be awarded travel funds of 10 000 SEK, and is expected to present the winning contribution in connection with the SCAI symposium 2024 in June.

Deadline for nomination is February 25th 2024.

To nominate a Master’s Thesis for the award, the following rules apply:

• The thesis is in one of the main areas of artificial intelligence research.
• The thesis has been presented officially during the period of January 1, 2023 – January 31, 2024.
• An electronic copy of the thesis (PDF) and a short written motivation by the nominator should be submitted through the following EasyChair submission area. The nomination should include a short motivation why the thesis should be selected as the winner, and state its contributions to AI. Please note that the “author” of the nomination is the person nominating the thesis, i.e. NOT the authors of the thesis, and in the “abstract” field please enter the motivation letter.
• The nominating person must be a member of SAIS, but does not have to be the official examiner or primary supervisor.
• Only one thesis nomination per nominating person is permitted.
• The master thesis project has to be conducted by a student registered at a Swedish university or other higher education establishment in Sweden, and/or present work mainly conducted at an organisation within Sweden, and/or represent a thesis where the official presentation was done in Sweden.

The SAIS board will review the nominated Master’s theses and determine a winner based on factors such as novelty, thoroughness, readability, scientific value and relevance to artificial intelligence, both with respect to research and to potential applications. The decision by the SAIS board will be final. The SCAI symposium is planned for June 10-11 2024, at JTH in Jönköping.

Fredrik Heintz – President of SAIS
Eva Blomqvist – Secretary of SAIS

This year we received 6 nominations, which were all reviewed by several SAIS board members. Although we received many high-quality nominations, after the review process the highest ranked thesis by the reviewers, at the same time the one considered most interesting for a presentation at the SAIS workshop, was selected by the board as this years winner.

The SAIS Best AI Master’s Thesis Award 2023 goes to:
Leila Methnani for the thesis entitled “Embracing AWKWARD! A Hybrid Architecture for Adjustable Socially-Aware Agents“, conducted at Umeå University under the supervision of Andreas Theodorou.

Motivation:
The thesis is very well written and the topic is highly timely, since it combines both reasoning and machine learning into a hybrid AI system. The thesis presents promising results and contribute towards important long-term goals, such as transparency of AI. The work has already been published in scientific venues, which is another clear indication of its substantial contribution.

The thesis will be presented at the SAIS workshop 2023 (see: https://www.bth.se/forskning/forskningsomraden/datavetenskap/sais-23/), at BTH on June 12-13 2023.

Congratulations to the winner, and a big thanks to everyone who nominated a thesis!

The SAIS board,
through Eva Blomqvist, SAIS secretary

In order to stimulate work in the area of artificial intelligence at the undergraduate level of education, SAIS has created a special yearly award for the best Master’s thesis (examensarbete) in the area of artificial intelligence. The winner will be awarded travel funds of 10 000 SEK, and is expected to present the winning contribution in connection with the SAIS workshop 2023 in June.

Deadline for nomination is February 24th 2023.

To nominate a Master’s Thesis for the award, the following rules apply:

• The thesis is in one of the main areas of artificial intelligence research.
• The thesis has been presented officially during the period of January 1, 2022 – January 31, 2023.
• An electronic copy of the thesis (PDF) and a short written motivation by the nominator should be submitted through the following EasyChair submission area. The nomination should include a short motivation why the thesis should be selected as the winner, and state its contributions to AI. Please note that the “author” of the nomination is the person nominating the thesis, i.e. NOT the authors of the thesis, and in the “abstract” field please enter the motivation letter.
• The nominating person must be a member of SAIS, but does not have to be the official examiner or primary supervisor.
• Only one thesis nomination per nominating person is permitted.
• The master thesis project has to be conducted by a student registered at a Swedish university or other higher education establishment in Sweden, and/or present work mainly conducted at an organisation within Sweden, and/or represent a thesis where the official presentation was done in Sweden.

The SAIS board will review the nominated Master’s theses and determine a winner based on factors such as novelty, thoroughness, readability, scientific value and relevance to artificial intelligence, both with respect to research and to potential applications. The decision by the SAIS board will be final. The SAIS workshop is planned for June 12-13 2023, at BTH in Karlskrona.

Fredrik Heintz – President of SAIS
Eva Blomqvist – Secretary of SAIS