The Kickoff Bootcamp launches IVADO’s Thematic Semester on Autonomous LLM Agents. Designed to equip participants with foundational knowledge and hands-on experience, this four-day event brings together researchers and students to explore the core capabilities, risks, and real-world implications of agentic AI systems.
Each day focuses on a distinct theme:
- Day 1: Software Engineering – Coding Agents
- Day 2: Computer Use – Browsing Agents
- Day 3: Robotics and Embodiment
- Day 4: Multi-Agent Interaction / Human-in-the-Loop Interaction
This event sets the stage for the broader semester by blending state-of-the-art talks, practical tutorials, and interdisciplinary research discussions.
Confirmed Speakers
Yoav Artzi (Cornell University, arXiv), Glen Berseth (IVADO, Université de Montréal, MILA), Joyce Chai (University of Michigan), Daniel Fried (Carnegie Mellon University), Natasha Jaques (University of Washington), Alexandre Lacoste (ServiceNow), Ofir Press (Princeton University), Siva Reddy (IVADO, Mila, McGill University), Yu Su (Ohio State University), Alane Suhr (UC Berkeley), Xin Eric Wang (UCSB, Simular), Victor Zhong (University of Waterloo, Vector Institute).
Agenda
TUESDAY, AUGUST 12TH, 2025 | SOFTWARE ENGINEERING – CODING AGENTS
8:45 – 9:00 a.m.: Welcome and Check-In
9:00– 9:15 a.m.: Welcome Address
9:15 – 10:45 a.m.: State of the Art – Code Generation With and For Agents
Daniel Fried (Carnegie Mellon University)
10:45 – 11 a.m.: Coffee Break
11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.: Research Talk & Discussion (Remote Presentation) – Towards Autonomous Language Model Systems
Ofir Press (Princeton University)
12:30 – 2:30 p.m.: Lunch Break (on your own)
2:30 – 4:00 p.m.: Tutorial
Marc-Alexandre Côté + Alessandro Sordoni (Microsoft Research Montreal)
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.: Networking Get-Together
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13TH, 2025 | COMPUTER USE – BROWSING AGENTS
9:00 – 9:15 a.m.: Welcome and Check-In
9:15 – 10:45 a.m.: State of the Art
Siva Reddy (IVADO, McGill University, Mila)
10:45 – 11:00 a.m.: Coffee Break
11:00 – 11:30 a.m.: Research Talk 1 – Building and Evaluating Generalist Agents
Victor Zhong (University of Waterloo, Vector Institute)
11:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. : Research Talk 2
Xin Eric Wang (UCSB)
12:00 – 12:30 p.m.: Discussion
12:30 – 2:30 p.m.: Lunch Break (on your own)
2:30 – 4:30 p.m.: Tutorial – How to Build and Evaluate Autonomous WebAgents
Alexandre Lacoste (ServiceNow)
THURSDAY, AUGUST 14TH, 2025 | ROBOTICS AND EMBODIMENT
9:00 – 9:15 a.m.: Welcome and Check-In
9:15 – 10:45 a.m.: State of the Art
Liam Paull (IVADO, Université de Montréal, Mila)
10:45 – 11:00 a.m.: Coffee Break
11:00 – 11:30 a.m.: Research Talk 1
Joyce Chai (University of Michigan)
11:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. : Research Talk 2 – Think Graphical, Act Local: Distributed Inference for Robot Perception and Planning
Jana Pavlasek (Polytechnique Montréal)
12:00 – 12:30 p.m.: Discussion
12:30 – 2:30 p.m.: Lunch Break (on your own)
2:30 – 4:30 p.m.: Tutorial
Glen Berseth (Université de Montréal)
FRIDAY AUGUST 15TH, 2025 | MULTI-AGENT INTERACTION / HUMAN IN-THE-LOOP INTERACTION
9:00 – 9:15 a.m.: Welcome and Check-In
9:15 – 10:45 a.m.: State of the Art
Alane Suhr (UC Berkeley)
10:45 – 11:00 a.m.: Coffee Break
11:00 – 11:30 a.m.: Research Talk 1 – Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) for LLMs
Natasha Jaques (University of Washington)
11:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. : Research Talk 2
Yoav Artzi (Cornell University)
12:00 – 12:30 p.m.: Discussion
12:30 – 2:30 p.m.: Lunch Break (on your own)
2:30 – 4:30 p.m.: Tutorial
Quentin Bertrand (Inria)
4:30 – 4.45p.m.: Closing Remarks
