On 30 and 31 March 2021, the UNESCO’s International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI) was inaugurated online by the Republic of Slovenia’s President, Borut Pahor, and the UNESCO’s Director General, Audrey Azoulay. This Center is under the auspices of UNESCO at Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI), Ljubljana, Slovenia. IRCAI’s objectives are to provide a coordination point, funding route and exploitation accelerator for approaches to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that make use of AI.

Opening speeches introduced the audience to the IRCAI project and the many contributions from Slovenia in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in recent years; for which it was selected. Emphasis was put on transparency, gender balance and how a more ethical AI would help reach the United Nations’ 17 SDGs by 2030. Discussions also focused on the need for a more efficient open education system on AI.

There are currently 10 initial projects that are being developed and are to be launched in 2021.

You can find more information about it on the IRCAI website and watch the launch event here.