Rebalancing the Global AI Landscape - the International Computation and AI Network (ICAIN)

ICAIN is a global initiative focused on broadening access to AI resources for sustainable development research. The organization connects AI capabilities (computing power, data, and expertise) with research projects aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

With its current members (both Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, Swiss National Computing Center, European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems, Data Science Africa, Finnish IT Center for Science) and under the patronage of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, ICAIN not only draws on the expertise of experienced policy-makers and some of the best AI researchers in Europe and Africa, but also has two of the most advanced, powerful supercomputers in the world at its disposal.

The event will serve to present first results of Pilot use cases for instance of a humanitarian LLM (with ICRC) and to launch the operational phase of ICAIN.

Welcome speech
- Martina Hirayama, State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI)

Podium speakers
- Prof. Dr. Joël Mesot; ETH President 
- Gilles Carbonnier, ICRC Vice President 
- Prof. Petri Myllymäki, University of Helsinki
- Kate Behncken, Corporate Vice President, Global Head of Microsoft Philanthropies, Microsoft
- Prof. Neil Lawrence, University of Cambridge

Poster presentations
- Prof. Dr. Thomas Schulthess, CSCS/ETH,
- Prof. Dr. Godliver Owomugisha, Busitema University
- Prof. Menna El Assady (ETH)
- PD Dr. Jérôme Duberry (IHEID)
- Prof. Dr. Annie Hartley, Yale/EPFL/CMU Africa
- Dr. Blaise Robert and Philippe Stoll (ICRC)

Moderation
- Katharina Frey, Swiss Diplomat, Deputy Head of the Division for Digital Foreign Policy, FDFA, Current head of ICAIN

Person for information, event registration & media requests:
Elisabeth Stingelin
Political Advisor, FDFA
elisabeth.stingelin@eda.admin.ch
+41 58 485 62 43
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