Artificial Intelligence for Information Accessibility (AI4IA)

The UNESCO Information For All Programme (IFAP) Working Group on Information Accessibility (WGIA), is hosting it's second online one-day conference on 28 September 2021. This event will be hosted in collaboration with the Kule Institute for Advanced Studies (KIAS) and AI for Society (AI4S), both at University of Alberta, Canada, the International Centre for Information Ethics (ICIE), Future Africa at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED) in ORF, India and the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica. It is being organised under the auspices of the UNESCO Cluster Office for the Caribbean, Kingston, Jamaica and the UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe.

The theme of the conference is Inclusive AI with topics addressing information accessibility. The conference is being organised to commemorate the International Day for Universal Access to Information (IDUAI) 2021 under the global theme, “What We Know about Our Right to Know" and in the context of the Covid 19 pandemic, “The Right to Know- Building Back Better with Access to Information."

International Day for Universal Access to Information focussed on the right to information in times of crisis and on the advantages of having constitutional, statutory and/or policy guarantees for public access to information to save lives, build trust and help the formulation of sustainable policies through and beyond the COVID-19 crisis.

The aim of this specific event is on promoting, but also understanding the barriers to, inclusive artificial intelligence. AI can be very beneficial to society but if abused it can also be very harmful.  The theme therefore raises a range of issues, including the relationship between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Law, AI and Ethics, media and our right to know, creativity and innovation.  It is necessary to understand how AI can be made inclusive, thereby enabling the widest cross-section of society.

This event provides a platform for open discourse involving participants from academia, civil society, private sector and government.