Technology has played a major role in scientific breakthroughs, and in recent years artificial intelligence is taking it a step further and raising the bar of scientific research. Are we on course of empowering AI to make scientific discoveries worthy of a Nobel Prize?
Engineering for Research (E4R) is an initiative founded by Thoughtworks to collaborate with research organizations in understanding and solving challenges in the fields of astronomy, biology, epidemiology and robotics. We share our knowledge with the larger community through scholarly publications and creating, and contributing to open source software frameworks. Thoughtworks E4R Symposium is our annual forum where luminaries, academicians, scientists and engineers come together to discuss the role of computer science in accelerating scientific exploration. We hosted the third edition, and the first ever virtual E4R Symposium, on October 10-11 2020.
Scientific discovery process governs how scientists and engineers discover the laws of nature, new materials, and new medicines. Traditionally, these discoveries were made by humans. Now, there is a growing community of scientists and engineers who believe machines can autonomously make discoveries in future. Dr. Ross D. King has demonstrated this possibility with his Adam and Eve Robot Scientists.
In recent years, machine learning and artificial intelligence have disrupted the computing landscape including scientific discovery. To quote Dr. Hiroaki Kitano, “AI systems can transform scientific discoveries into highly efficient practices, thereby enabling us to expand our knowledge in unprecedented ways. Such systems may out-compute all possible hypotheses and may redefine the nature of scientific intuition, hence the scientific discovery process.” He and Dr. King have joined hands with many other experts across scientific disciplines to propose the Nobel-Turing Grand Challenge 2050, where AI should earn a Nobel prize of its own. In this year's Engineering for Research (E4R) Symposium, luminaries shared their vision and insight on this theme.
The Speakers

Dr. Ross D. King
Turing Fellow, The Alan Turing Institute, UK;
Professor, Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden;
Director of Research, Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, UK

Dr. Hiroaki Kitano
President, Systems Biology Institute;
Professor, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate School;
President & CEO, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.;
CEO, Sony AI Inc./ Executive Vice President, Sony Corporation, Japan

Dr. Mary-Anne Williams
Distinguished Research Professor, School of Computer Science;
Core Member, Joint Research Centre in Intelligent Systems Membership;
Associate Member, AAI - Advanced Analytics Institute;
Core Member, AAII - Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute

Dr. Urbasi Sinha
Professor, Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru, India

Dr. Benjamin Jantzen
Associate Professor, Virginia Tech, USA

Dr. Sanjay Chandrashekharan
Associate Professor, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai;
Adjunct faculty member, Interdisciplinary Program in Educational Technology, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

Dr. Abhishek Kumar Singh
Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India

Dr. Vikram Jamwal
Principal Scientist at TCS Research, India

Dr. Peter Clark
Senior Research Manager, Allen Institute of AI, US

Prof. Sundar Sarukkai
Founder, Barefoot Philosophers

Rebecca Parsons
Chief Technology Officer, Thoughtworks

Sameer Soman
Managing Director, Thoughtworks India

Chhaya Yadav
Delivery Partner, Engineering for Research, Thoughtworks

Pooja Arora
Bioinformatician, Lead Consultant, Thoughtworks

Dave Elliman
Global Head of Technology, Thoughtworks

Harshal Hayatnagarkar
Computer Scientist, Engineering for Research, Thoughtworks
Past Editions
2019: Science and Engineering of Complex Systems
In the second edition of Thoughtworks E4R Symposium, we focused on the need and approaches to understand and compute complex systems. Discussions centered on how the noble missions of grand exploration and big science need engineering excellence to become a reality.
2018: The Fourth Paradigm of Science
Thoughtworks Engineering for Research team organized the first edition of E4R Symposium in 2018. The forum of scientists, researchers, engineers and technologists across scientific disciplines delved into the three important trends disrupting the field of Computational Science: Data Deluge, Artificial Intelligence, and Complex Modeling & Simulation.
Thoughtworks E4R
Thoughtworks Engineering for Research (E4R) is our initiative to apply computational methods to advance research in the scientific disciplines such as astronomy, physiology, genomics, economics, and disaster response in societies, but not limited to these. With this practice, Thoughtworks is committed to the 14th Engineering Grand Challenge.
Our approach is built upon over 25 years of hands-on experience, paired with our deep technical expertise in the areas that are core to every enterprise’s technology strategy.
The intent is to build a community working exclusively with research organizations, and build tools for scientific exploration, that will enable us to discover patterns, frameworks and computer science of the third horizon.