QCRI and UNDP to Host Workshop on Artificial Intelligence

Entity: Qatar Computing Research Institute

Qatar Center for Artificial Intelligence, part of Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s (HBKU) Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), has partnered with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to host the UNDP-QCAI Artificial Intelligence for Social Good workshop on February 17.

Representatives from the world’s leading NGOs and UN agencies, as well as academics and industry leaders, will convene in Doha to develop an increased understanding of - and identify applications for - the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to solve real-world developmental and humanitarian problems.

Dr. Ingmar Weber, organizer of the event and QCRI’s research director, said: “The workshop will provide an opportunity to consider challenges including the ethics related to ensuring AI delivers equal benefits to all, leaving no one behind; technical and legal issues related to data access; as well as operational issues related to the integration of new technologies.

“The emphasis will be on forging a realistic outlook bridging the pessimist’s ‘extreme poverty won’t be solved by algorithms’ and the optimist’s ‘this Twitter sentiment dashboard will change everything’, and on identifying opportunities for partnerships among stakeholders.”

Speakers from UNDP, United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (iDMC) and the World Bank will cover topics including AI for the most vulnerable, and the use of AI to detect, map and quantify internal displacement. Representatives from private sector and academia, including Vodafone and New York University’s GovLab, will also be attending to discuss how partnerships can be forged to effect positive change.

Jennifer Colville, Innovation Team Leader at the UNDP Regional Hub for Arab States, said: “We are mindful of both the possibilities, and the risks, that advances in artificial intelligence hold for society. We welcome the opportunity of this workshop to hear from some of the leading lights in AI, and to offer a platform for connecting those with development and humanitarian challenges to those with resources to help solve them. We hope that the outcome of this convening will contribute to the agenda in the AI space.”

Those interested in the development and humanitarian sectors, and/or novel applications of artificial intelligence, are invited to attend the workshop, contribute to the discussions and network with other experts from the field. The workshop will be held at the Researchery (formerly known as the HBKU Research Complex), and all presentations will be in English.

For more information, please visit: https://qcai.qcri.org/index.php/events/ai-for-social-good/