AI Connect participants visit IBM’s New Delhi Office

Summary

On Monday, April 11, and Tuesday, April 12, the first in-person workshop of the AI Connect program took place in New Delhi, India. The event itself featured AI Connect participants from countries spanning Southeast and Central Asia, as well as a contingent of local Indian representatives. The two-day event, hosted at the Leela Palace Hotel and in cooperation with the Observer Research Foundation, featured: panels covering AI policy and multi-stakeholder ecosystems globally and in India; case studies of AI policies and practices presented by program participants; a fireside chat with Dr. Nalin Mehta; a collaborative workshop in which participants designed responsible AI policies from scratch; and a site visit to IBM’s New Delhi office, where IBM researchers and staff presented their ongoing R&D efforts.

The participants were able to engage with each other throughout the conference to build out their professional networks and compare notes on their experiences with AI policy development. Local participants were affiliated with organizations like Google, Microsoft, IBM, BSA, ITIC, and the U.S. Embassy post in New Delhi. In a post-event survey, AI Connect participants reflected positively on their experiences with the conference, particularly highlighting the utility of the offsite visit to IBM and the networking opportunities provided by the event.

The second in-person workshop of the AI Connect program will take place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in late July.

To the right: Workshop at the Leela Palace in New Delhi
To the left: IBM researchers spoke about responsible AI development

Participant Testimonials:

  • Dr. Somsanouk Pathoumvanh, Deputy Director of the Lao-Japan Technical Training Center, National University, Laos: “The most impressive part was [the design workshop] where we identified stakeholders, mapped common issues, and tried to build the responsible ecosystem for a particular country. This is a starting point for us to establish a working group for our countries in the future.”
  • Dr. Jeannie Paterson, Co-Director, Centre for AI and Digital Ethics, Australia: “Getting a group of people together to talk about things that they are passionate about from different countries is a tremendous experience. Those interpersonal connections that we made really created for me a very valuable experience.”