BDT Director Doreen Bogdan-Martin addressed the AI for Development (AI4Dev) challenge. Organized by ITU and facilitated by NilePreneurs in partnership with other UN agencies, local and international organizations, the challenge aims to identify great ideas in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and utilize its impact on 4 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Arab & African states. These are: goal 2 on zero hunger, goal 3 on good health and well-being, goal 8 on decent work and economic growth, and goal 9 on industry, infrastructure and innovation.
Given the number of organizations across the digital ecosystem and global development community that have shown interest in partnering with ITU in this challenge, Ms Bogdan-Martin commented that this ''speaks to the confidence stakeholders have in young innovators from the Arab and African regions'' and that it ''testifies to the excitement that continues to build around AI and its potential to tackle some of the most difficult development issues of our time.''
In the wake of the global pandemic, economies all over the world face increasingly complex challenges that will demand highly creative, innovative solutions. She observed that ''emerging technologies will drive the next wave of digital disruption, and have enormous potential to finally break through chronic connectivity barriers.''
In particular, AI's contribution to the economies of the Arab and African nations is expected to continue to grow, with some analysts estimating that AI systems could soon underpin up to 19% of the annual GDP contribution of industries like retail, wholesale trade, consumer goods, accommodation, and food services in the Middle East by the end of this decade.
Ms Bogdan-Martin applauded all 25 teams that competed in the challenge, and encouraged them to continue to build on their great ideas and bring them to life. In conclusion, she told participants, ''They say that if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together… and together we have reached the end of this Challenge, inspired by what we have achieved, and energized to build on this very fruitful multistakeholder collaboration to leverage the power and promise of new technologies to accelerate regional and global digital transformation.''
